LEGGERA RESISTENZA
Artworks by
HERMA DE WIT
in dialogue with
NOBUSHIGE AKYAMA | RAFFAELLA MENICHETTI | ROSA MARIA VILLANI
Galleria Sinopia
October 21 – November 20
Opening – Tuesday, October 21 from 6:00 PM
Curated by Raffaella Lupi and Cloe Berni
Galleria Sinopia presents Light Resistance, an exhibition that pays tribute to the profound bond between humans and nature, making the elements of the earth tangible through works of art. In a dialogue between lightness and resistance, earth becomes language, form, inner vision.
Ancient mixtures give life to bronze, paper, and ceramics—materials that speak of a universal time, dense with memories from which inner landscapes emerge.
With this exhibition, Galleria Sinopia hosts the artist Herma de Wit for the first time. Her artistic research is deeply rooted in nature. Her bronze sculptures arise from an intense and poetic observation of the plant world: fragments of flora become abstract, evocative elements, suspended between reality and imagination. Her work reveals a delicate balance between strength and fragility, between the eternal and the ephemeral, between contemplation and metamorphosis.
Herma de Wit's works enter into dialogue with those of three other artists: Nobushige Akyama, Raffaella Menichetti, and Rosa Maria Villani, each engaged in a personal exploration of material and mark-making.
Nobushige Akyama has long transformed ancient washi paper—handmade from the bark of the mulberry tree (kozo)—into contemporary sculptures. His suspended works, both strong and light, emphasize the balance between human and nature, creating unexpected oases of reflection.
Rosa Maria Villani also explores the possibilities of paper with her project Written Mark. This graphic work stems from reflections on art, material contamination, and the use of diverse tools. Her experimentation becomes an experience that explores and plays with forms, colors, textures, and compositions. Her works are visual weavings that evoke imaginary writings, soundless gestures, languages without a singular meaning. Paper becomes a space of play, exploration, and inner resonance.
In dialogue with the other works on display, Raffaella Menichetti presents the Liber series—sculptures created through the layering of pigments, clay soils, water, fire, fragments, terracotta slabs, and ceramics. The artist entrusts clay with the role of preserving the written word, evoking ancient gestures of memory and knowledge. The terracotta scrolls recall ancient libraries, symbols of a shared yet fragile knowledge, exposed to loss and oblivion. The slow act of engraving becomes a meditative gesture, a bridge between different cultures and eras. Liber, in Latin, means both "written scroll" and "free": a deep connection between word and freedom. The work celebrates the beauty and value of the word as a tool of awareness and resistance.
