OBSERVING REALITY

Nature is made up of people and items, everyday objects and the air around it; landscapes and animals. We constantly come into contact with all of these elements. Often however we don’t pay close attention, or rather we do; but just occasionally; when pushed into observing reality. Like in moments of intense emotions, scientific observation, or when we come into direct physical contact with nature in the cities and countryside’s we inhabit. More often than not however we merely graze its surface without letting it impact us too deeply. The artist does not. An artist is able to see things, to observe them with meticulous attention and become part of them. He can look at them in great detail and above all represent them. Artists possess the communicative ability which consists in choosing the most suited means of the depicting that patch of reality which they have framed. Sometimes they use pastel, a material that equates to an almost tactile use of colour. This allows us to peer through the colours on the canvas, to the artist’s thoughts; wandering as he carves his own path without logical precision but with personal sensitivity. An artist in fact, is an extremely sensitive person who is able, above all through the subject matter chosen as his means, to communicate the sensations of his experiences, of the places and people he’s frequented or even the sensation of experiencing the future.

"Reality surrounds us, envelops us: we live in it, without realizing it, but we cannot do without it."

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Donatella Riccio is an artist who uses pastel as a means of communication, as a conduit to her own frequency of reality and a vision of her own sensory experiences. Her contact with reality, nurtured by the knowledge and studies of great masters of the past, starts from a solid awareness of both structural and emotional patterns and stretches to incisive gestures of a striking effect. Her eyes are curious of the reality she sees; supported by a notable understanding for surfaces however they are also capable of composing people and objects coming from different domains. Sometimes therefore her works can be unsettling. Like in her portraits: sometimes you don’t exactly know if the gaze of the subjects being depicted look through the spectator or directly inside him, at, as if witnesses of unspoken and un-confessed emotions. The warmth of their gaze often corresponds to the memories and practices matured over time. Through chance encounters or through the edges of space and landscape that she has deliberately left barren and from which often a sense of anticipation is born. Donatella Riccio is able to truly peer into reality. Not only does she look or observes reality but she’s also ready to narrate it, so that we too can experience a fragment of that emotion.