Federica Schiavo Gallery

Federica Schiavo Gallery is pleased to present Aspecifici – Lavori anni ’60 e ’70 the second personal show by Luisa Gardini (Ravenna, 1935). The Gallery has the honour to show works that have never been exhibited before.

In the 1950s, Luisa Gardini attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome where she met Toti Scialoja, a central figure who bridged the New York art world to the Italian one. Thanks to him she drew near the American abstract expressionists such as Rothko, De Kooning and especially Cy Twombly, whom she frequented regularly over the years.

Luisa Gardini, driven by her desire to be an artist, embarked on her long journey through art: "an art with no rules, since each painting has its own rules - as she stated - because Scialoja's teaching was first of all an attitude, a thought directed towards art, aiming to the continuous attention towards expressive novelties ".

The artist stated that she discovered in Matisse the energy embedded in his sign-form, while, in Cy Twombly the speed of sign-writing. Furthermore from artists such as De Kooning and Pollock she learned how to work the canvas in such a way that it became “material” and alive and she eventually moved from the surface of the paper to the three-dimensionality of the object also inspired by neo dada’s suggestions. Such are the ways through which her daily life, objects and fragments of emotions, enter her work and re-emerge with new forms. Their immanence counteracts with the levity and precariousness of their forms.

Through the constant search of form that conquers space, always refraining from representation, Gardini creates drawings, collages, paintings and sculptures that, thanks to the energy they emanate, evoke emotions and instinct while her sign becomes highly personal, the use of a variety of media overlaps and mixes.

A very small palette of colours, mainly black, white and red, the use of acrylic and Kaolin drips, the broad brush strokes and the direct use of her fingers, the layers and accumulation on the canvas or on wood, all become traces of the flow of existence and its ephemeral nature.