On Wednesday, 24 March, TOAST Project Space will present Cieli Neri by Alice Visentin.

This exhibition, realised by the artist over the course of a residency at Toast, features large-scale drawings, watercolour paintings and wax-pastels. 

Cieli Neri is the pictorial representation of Alice’s many interests which span from the variety of the cosmos to daily events to the tradition of oral storytelling and song. The artist’s imagery is developed from the vernacular culture of rural communities which, in these works, is fused with visual references that she encountered during her stay in Florence. 

Using a limited set of materials, Alice Visentin creates intricate compositions which unfurl along two scrolls of paper that measure 1.3 x 12 metres each, donning the work an interchangeable and modular structure. In this ‘microcosm’ water and coloured pigments blend in forms to reveal stylised characters, gold highlights, and plants. Phrases and words can be found as well, almost as if the paper scrolls had the ability to share their wisdom verbally. 

The shapes of faces, colours, and written words contain an infinite number of stories and influences: Florence’s botanical garden that is currently closed but described by a passerby, the use of mixed colour with water which imitates the river Arno’s flow, the decorated architecture which hints at the marvels inside impenetrable palaces. All these stories meld in the blink of an eye, as if they were a manifesto to pass on from generation to generation.