SUBTRACE
Curated by Monica Pirone

“Art is never a solitary act: even the most personal gesture needs the other to exist.”
— Jean-Luc Godard

A group of artists is not a sum of individualities, but a single breath that multiplies through differences. The dialogue between artists does not cancel out voices — it amplifies them: within the whole, a sense of choral unity is born that no one alone could ever compose.

The title of this exhibition, Subtrace, is particularly meaningful: in a loud era, pervaded by conflicting opinions and devoid of dialogue, these small works demonstrate how differences can coexist — conversing from wall to wall, whispering emotions to one another. Emotions that, rather than describing landscapes, reveal an inner geographical map of our soul.

Differences are our true wealth: these inner connections are who we are — with our shyness, our difficult relationship with nature, the melancholy of the everyday, and our capacity to invent new ways to express emotions, experimenting with techniques that recover that movement of the soul which makes us human.

The collective thus gives way to a group of friends, moving away from rigid classifications of art and bringing forward that feeling which, beyond art itself, unites us while we travel different paths. Although each of us is “other” in relation to the other — and while remaining protagonists — we can still form a chorus: speak different languages, yet understand one another.

In Francesco Campese’s two works, the volume lowers: a half-open window invites us to linger on the threshold, in a time suspended between the real and the unreal. An extended dream compels us to move slowly, to feel our own breath. In this suspension, we are able to perceive the heartbeat and recognize our emotions.

In Eleonora Cutini’s works, the journey within becomes memory — and through self-perception, it creates a connection between thought and the dream world. Is it a pause or a true journey that can reconnect us with the authentic meaning of things?

Silva Iampietro’s work carves furrows, traces, continuous chiaroscuro lines that become testimony: a generous painting that arouses emotion and, through its very mark, tells — beyond the subject — a map of our footprints and our presence. A copious painting that does not hesitate to offer its signs and brings us back to the past in order to remain anchored to the present.

In Guglielmo Mattei’s works, we witness a world that only seemingly represents reality. Within urban views, we perceive the abandonment of human presence from places where everything once was — and perhaps is no longer. In post-industrial atmospheres, he speaks of a trespassing that is more metaphysical than physical: where the classical colonnade is replaced by a gas station or the parking lot of a shopping mall. And even if the sun shines, we sense the approach of a twilight that envelops everything.

In Elisa Selli’s atmospheres, it is the heat that unsettles us: it deprives us of strength and forces us to coexist with a nature that, though lush, carries within itself the frailty of being. Flora — the absolute protagonist — has the power that distinguishes nature, yet lives enclosed in greenhouses where, as we observe, we can almost feel the humidity and the consequent fatigue of moving and thinking. A heat that seems more existential than physical.

Marialuna Storti works with paper, representing it in its various stages. By interacting with the material, she leaves much to the natural behavior of things, allowing the autonomy of matter itself to define the boundaries and stage our fragilities. The work self-represents and lives beyond the artist, following a path guided by Storti, who carefully measures her intervention: with delicacy she manipulates, holding between her fingers — without squeezing, so as not to suffocate — the elements that become the sensitive material of our story.

Emanuele Moretti spreads layers of color that appear less as abstractions than as magnifications of sentimental micro-worlds. He reveals to us a world to uncover, to explore, and we seem to rediscover the clarity of what we thought was only an impression. As if Moretti were handing us a magnifying lens, inviting us to examine things closely — to linger on details we may have once looked at absentmindedly. A small world that, from detail, becomes the true meaning of our life.

With Filippo Saccà, we find ourselves before a boundary line that must be crossed. His works invite us to go beyond, to look further. The dotted lines of hypothetical physical borders are fragile — they carry arrows pointing in directions — yet to the viewer’s eye, there is nothing left but to let go into these scenarios representing an inner journey, an exploration of self amid the multiplicity of expressions that life offers. A search for the self that unites us all and, through discovery, makes us hope for a fragile humanity constantly seeking itself.

The title Subtrace ultimately centers on the shared need of all participants to reconnect with that deeper layer — the true meaning of things — which, in these times of war, brings back into focus what we are dangerously close to losing. The Ariadne’s thread of this delicate exhibition leads us toward knowledge.

The works on display, in their intimate scale, speak of us: of our fragilities, the modesty of existence, our timidity, and everything that makes us melancholic and thoughtful explorers of our fragile souls.

Rome, October 10, 2025
Monica Pirone