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

Curated by Emanuela Agnoli, the exhibition—Melfi’s first at the gallery—presents over twenty previously unseen works created over the past two years. These medium- and large-format paintings are inspired by the artist’s native land, Salento, as well as by Bologna and its surroundings, and nocturnal views of Rome. Distinct places are brought together by what the curator describes as “the enigma of the instant”—the “zero moment” shaped by the sensations experienced by the artist at the precise instant he photographs the landscape before translating it into painting.

As 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 the moment, the poetry of light, and the feeling of places of the soul, together with memory and nostalgia for one’s roots. […] The emotion of painting guides the artist’s hand, giving rise to an aesthetic pleasure in capturing a moment, a view, a landscape: the subject, seen and lived, is reinterpreted through an inner gaze that transforms it into something unique, beyond time and space.”

And further:

“There emerges a way of looking at the world that is attentive and delicate, one that resists haste and questions itself: the artist returns to many details, reworking them even over time, constantly reassessing his work in the pursuit—sometimes perfectionist—of that intense, perhaps magical instant, to be fully relived by the viewer who is open, engaged, and even moved.”

Melfi’s canvases are dense, filled with contrasts of light and an intense sensitivity to the beauty that surrounds us. A beauty that the artist succeeds in conveying to those who take the time to observe his works closely—varied in subject, yet unified by a painterly practice rooted in the desire to transmit that 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