On Saturday 24 February 2024 at 5 pm, Galleria Studio Cenacchi, Via Santo Stefano 63, Bologna, opens ISTANTI, a solo exhibition of oil paintings by Attilio Melfi.

Melfi’s first exhibition at Galleria Studio Cenacchi is curated by Emanuela Agnoli and features more than 20 previously unseen works created over the past two years. The medium- and large-scale paintings move between very different places: the artist’s native Salento, with its towns and seascapes; Bologna and its surroundings; and Rome at night.

What connects these distant settings is what Agnoli calls The Enigma of the Moment in the title of her accompanying essay. It is the ‘zero moment’: the sensation experienced by Melfi at the precise instant he photographs the landscape before him, which will later become the starting point for a painting.

Emanuela Agnoli writes:

“From seascapes to urban views, the paintings of Attilio Melfi — born in Brindisi and now based in Bologna — convey the emotions of a particular moment, the poetry of light, a sense of places that hold a deep personal meaning, and the memory and nostalgia of his roots. […] The emotion of painting guides the artist’s hand. There is an aesthetic pleasure in experiencing a moment, a view, a landscape. What he has seen and experienced is reconsidered through his inner eye and transformed into something unique, beyond time and place.”

She continues:

“His work reveals an attentive and sensitive way of looking at the world, one that refuses to be hurried and continually questions what it sees. Melfi often returns to individual details, reworking them even much later and constantly reassessing his own choices. It is an ongoing, at times perfectionist search for that intense, perhaps magical moment he once experienced — and which he seeks to bring fully to life again for viewers willing to look, become involved and perhaps even be moved.”

Melfi’s paintings have a striking sense of intensity. They are rich in contrasts of light and imbued with a profound feeling for the beauty that surrounds us. It is a beauty he shares with those willing to spend time looking closely at his work.

The subjects may vary widely, but the paintings are held together by the same underlying impulse: Melfi’s desire to capture and convey a precise moment of revelation.

Attilio Melfi
Istanti
Curated by Emanuela Agnoli
24 February > 23 March 2024

GALLERIA STUDIO CENACCHI
Via Santo Stefano 63
40125 Bologna

OPENING HOURS
Tuesday–Saturday: 4.30–7.30 pm
Monday: by appointment
Sunday: closed