Luisanna Quattrini

It has long been demonstrated that part of our mental activity escapes our control. When they pop into consciousness, the images that are the manifestation of this phenomenon can be characterized by their elusiveness and propensity to dissolve. Luisanna Quattrini’s paintings come from sensitive awareness of this evanescence. What the viewer sees – or, more often, glimpses – seems about to appear or disappear. Luisanna Quattrini’s visual universe is an aquatic one, of fundamental instability. The viewer’s initial haze gives way to the idea of an image, a burgeoning scene, an allusion that evaporates. Near-shapeless characters – animals or human silhouettes – emerge from the gauze of diaphanous color floating over the canvas. They are barely developed creatures, fleeting "emergences-resurgences" (Henri Michaux), strange dreamlike situations. Their brief coalescence enables them to be glimpsed without being discerned, to hint at recognition without identification.

With Luisanna Quattrini, painting stems from a mental experience that she invites the viewer to share. She addresses a community of alert dreamers on the cusp of the unconscious, where imagination is ferried into the unknown. Sometimes, the painting seems to take over from the image, and then there are piles or heaps that build the pictures, as if a primeval joy were at play. As if the anxiety of dreams were superseded by the simple burst of colors, by dazzling awareness.

With the support of Pro Helvetia, Fondation suisse pour la culture