EXHIBITION: Francesco Poiana 'Lavori su carta'

Francesco Poiana

Lavori su carta

14 July – 31 August 2023

Painter Francesco Poiana’s deep connection with the Italian landscape is further revealed through this new series of watercolours. In this instance, it is the multiple salt flats of Western Sicily that have become his principal subject, with the works a result of a five-week tour he made to the area in the summer of 2022. Like so many artists before him, it is the allure of the sun-saturated colour and luminosity of the Mediterranean landscape that draws Poiana back, time and again, to reacquaint, rediscover and respond through the medium of paint.

He describes:

“These works on paper are fragments of landscapes made of light and coarse salt, a point of view on the landscape that evokes the gaze of an eighteenth-century traveller; to return to know how to look at that landscape enjoying its richness.

During the last year I have deepened the research on the Mediterranean landscape, especially I stopped for a long time in the salt pans in western Sicily. The salt is extracted from the salt pans by evaporating the sea water and the salt by precipitation remains on the ground where it is then collected by machines or by hand by workers.

The process of salt production is a metaphor for the artistic process of inner synthesis of shapes and colours. Like a hunter gatherer again here the painter is harvesting the fruits that the landscape can offer.

These works of pure projection are transformed into an archetype of original landscape, individual that has as reference the outside world but that then in the mental space of the studio crystalizes and is then collected.”

Salina Magenta

2022
Watercolour and Gouache on paper
h28.5cm x w38.5cm

£2250

Punta Tipa ruin

2022
Oil on paper
h25cm x w32.5cm

£1850

Rockpool

2022
Watercolour and Gouache on paper
h20cm x w27.5cm

£1850

Rockpool II

2022
Oil on paper
h25cm x w32.5cm

£1850

Salt Pools

2022
Watercolour and Gouache on paper
h28.5cm x w36.5cm

SOLD

Salina Notte

2022
Acrylic on paper
h30cm x w40cm

£2250

Salina in Orange and Magenta

2022
Oil on paper
h20cm x w28.5cm

RESERVED

Blue Bay

2022
Mixed Media
h20cm x w28.5cm

£1850

Fish Market I

2022
Gouache on paper
h19cm x w25cm

£1450

Casa

2022
Gouache on paper
h17cm x w21.5cm

£1450