Paolo Chiasera
Terra Lavica Armena

Martina Simeti is pleased to announce Paolo Chiasera’s first exhibition at the gallery. The artist presents a new body of work in which the human figure emerges through absences and traces, balancing intimacy and transcendence.

At the entrance, three large canvases made of Armenian lava stone depict a sweatshirt and a pair of loafers, personal garments captured at different times of the day. These everyday objects, seemingly just taken off and abandoned, become silent relics, evoking human presence. The sweatshirt takes on a hidden anatomy, while the positioning of the shoes recalls the archetypal forms of crucifixions.

The space transforms into a spiritual setting where offerings take unexpected forms: a strange egg holder, filled to the brim, is turned into a ritual symbol. The chicken coop overlaps with the glory hole—two recurring images in Chiasera’s recent work—prompting a reflection on the boundaries between protection and exposure. An eye, the only visible element beyond the red velvet—painted with the lost cinnabar of Mount Amiata—peers through a hole. The curtain thus becomes a veil of Maya, a threshold between reality and illusion, between revelation and concealment. [Excerpt from the press release]