Myrtus

The exhibition presents Elisa Selli's latest body of paintings, in dialogue with the natural world through a sequence of canvases of various formats that compose the tale of an enchanted landscape. The entire work is inspired by La Mortella, the garden Lady Walton created on Ischia, here dissected into details that enhance the fleshiness of plants and flowers crystallised in an eternal, unrepeatable bloom. The paintings are flanked by an evocative large-format carpet-tapestry made site-specific.

“Elisa Selli's relationship with the botanical universe is not only contemplative and reflective. Her practice leads her to interact with nature by imposing on it her own times; her hyperrealism is never cold or distant.”

“The obsession with detail leaves behind all academic dogmatism to become magic, enchantment, short-circuit. The paintings become the embodiment of a dream, the memory of a landscape one would like to keep safe from contamination — and the game of painting the perfection of imperfection becomes ever more seductive.” — Alessandra Pacelli