By Brianna Hoefer
Photos by the author and Silvia Mancini

Several weeks ago, during the first few days of starting my student curating course here in Florence, my classmates and I dove right into the projects and tasks that ultimately resulted in a successful opening night for the first exhibition we organized.

Our tasks included getting to know our featured local artist, Paolo Lantieri. In the first moments of glancing at the pieces that would be displayed, I was immediately taken back by the overwhelming amount of beautiful vivid colors he uses in his work. I fell in love instantly with the contrasting color combinations and his use of shading that made up the female forms he depicted in each piece.

It soon became apparent that there was a theme through out his work, and that was the repetition of the female form and the use of color to do so. The pieces represented in the exhibition that we curated consisted almost entirely of portraits of different representations of women, with the exception of two or three landscape paintings.

Each and every piece throughout this exhibition has the power to completely captivate each viewer, but there were three in particular that I became the most fond of. These three paintings were unique in that the female figures didn’t have facial features, and the reason I believe that I may have been the most drawn to them is because of the fact that I was then influenced to use my imagination. I could suddenly see familiar facial features of people I knew in them and give those pieces a more personal meaning behind them.

Shape, 40×50 cm, Oil on Wood

My personal favorite depicts a pregnant woman. I’m not exactly sure why this piece out of the twenty-one pieces displayed, but I am drawn to the calm and cool tones that he used, to the fluidity of her figure. There is no doubt that this portrait is an extraordinarily example of his collection. Hands down, Lantieri is now one of my favorite artists.