On Thursday, July 4, 2019, at 6:00 PM, the Pietro Golia Study Center in Naples will host the inauguration of the exhibition "Le Fiabe del Centrino," a solo exhibition by artist Barbara Karwowska. The opening of the renowned Polish painter will be attended by Maurizio Vitiello (sociologist and art critic), Luigi Branchini (President of the Pietro Golia Study Center), and Ivan Guidone (journalist and exhibition curator).
During the inauguration, the artist will also be present and will read some excerpts from fairy tales connected to his paintings to the public. Barbara Karwowska's personal exhibition - open to the public until 4 August 2019 - received the moral patronage of the Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Poland, Campania Region.
The title Le Fiabe del Centrino (The Tales of the Doily) derives from a decorative motif that was very dear to the artist (used as a halo or crown in his paintings) and from his inspiration from some popular Neapolitan fairy tales such as “Lo cunto de li cunti” by Giambattista Basile.
Like the embroidered fabric, so the doily painted by Karwowska takes on a dual function: decorative and protective. The first work in which this decorative motif appeared was made in 1999 and was "Il Rosario", a large painting consisting of 27 canvases and two panels, donated to the Villa Colombaia by Luchino Visconti in Ischia. The doily thus takes on a symbolic meaning, it wants to protect the inner world of the personalities portrayed by Karwowska.
The exhibited works will see two other recurring elements: the crown and the pinwheel. The crown becomes the symbol of inner power, while the pinwheel, that of childhood and innocence, is also represented as a means to face the difficulties of life lightly and to become a little child again. Evocative of lightness and movement, the pinwheel becomes the symbol of serenity in "The Triumph of Peace". The canvases are essentially trichromatic, made with the use of brown, purple and white. Brown, the color of craftsmanship and nature, represents vitality understood as a balance between body and mind; purple increases the mystery and magic of his works; white, on the other hand, in addition to giving brightness, indicates the purity and spirituality of the creative process.
At the Pietro Golia Study Center, 9 large-format paintings will be exhibited, including 6 works inspired by Neapolitan folk tales:
· Once upon a time there was the King of Vallepelosa, who had a daughter called Zoza (year 2013, oil on canvas, 150×100 cm);
· Arre Cacaore! The Ogre's Tale (year 2013, oil on canvas, 150×100 cm);
· The Goat's Face (year 2014, oil on canvas, 150×100 cm);
· La mortella (year 2014, oil on canvas, 150×100 cm);
· Cinderella the Cat (year 2014, oil on canvas, 150×100 cm);
· The melancholic princess Zoza (year 2013, oil on canvas, 150×100 cm).
During the solo exhibition of the artist Barbara Karwowska, some portraits of characters connected to her world of fairy tales (Giambattista Basile, Roberto De Simone, etc.) and the series of paintings “Sembrano finestra” (They look like windows), consisting of 16 small canvases of 20x20 cm, will also be exhibited. Referring to this series of paintings, the writer Ornella della Libera writes: “They look like windows, faces looking out of the windows of the world (even the virtual one), looking, lost, surprised, intimidated, insecure, with respect, with shyness, with education at the other, the different, the situation that is happening, they scrutinize, they glimpse, they peek, almost as if they wanted to look without being seen, as if they wanted to be ghosts, invisible to the world that instead wants to be seen, to be the protagonist, at the center of attention. Not them. They are not morbid voyeurs of the lives of others: their faces are incomplete, they do not have and do not show their complete identity, they do not want to be recognized and be recognizable. They are fragments of life, fragments of incomplete identities, they are pieces of a mosaic of life, pieces of a puzzle that only Love can define, complete.”
EDITORIAL TEAM
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