“Between Liguria & Tuscany” is the art gallery in the underpass at the entrance of Portovenere‘s historical center. Grand Hotel Portovenere conceived and inaugurated this art space in 2020. Since then, it has alternated works by artists from the Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti di Genova (Liguria) and the Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara (Tuscany). The common thread of this art installation is the history of the Gulf of Poets, seen and interpreted by different artists and with various techniques and materials.
Two new artworks, both oil on canvas, are on display from September 2022! One is by Elisabetta Vernetti, 55 cm x 100 cm, called “Scoglio”. The other is by Davide Cedolin, 128 cm X 93.5 cm, called “Cosmic Ligurian Pastoral IV”. Other artworks displayed in this gallery include marble sculptures by the Tuscan ‘Bedrock’ collective and Ligurian artist Sabrina Davì.
About Elisabetta Vernetti and her painting
“I remember the emotion of my first time in front of a work of art as a child. It was Michelangelo’s Rondanini Pietà! I felt a joy never felt before: I had found my place; I was at home. I believe that my entire journey has basically been about continuing to search, in different forms, without knowing it, for that meeting of gazes, that luminous joy, a space in which to breathe”.
A pupil of Piero Terrone and Federico Palerma, Elisabetta Vernetti graduated in painting in 2021 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Genoa. She has participated in group exhibitions like AAA (curated by S. Marzagalli and P. Bonfiglio in Genoa’s Palazzo Ducale-Sala Dogana), Forget by heart (curated by S. Barbera in Genoa’s Commenda di Prè) and Alberi (Nabot Gallery in Genoa).
“Before working on this project, I immersed myself in the voices of the artists who lived and found their inspiration in the Cinque Terre. I visited Portovenere on a sunny winter day, and Eugenio Montale’s words guided me to look at this ancient, harsh, pure landscape with new eyes. […] I felt that Portovenere is an absolute place where another time flows. Only the present lives here, a long, sunny and suspended moment.”
Elisabetta Vernetti’s painting, created especially for Portovenere’s art gallery, captures what she felt following Montale’s tracks and visiting the Gulf of Poets.
About Davide Cedolin and his painting
Davide Cedolin was born in 1982 and is a plural artist based in Liguria’s countryside. With a focus on painting, music and writing, his artistic poetics are closely related to nature, rural life and his timeless imagery. His artwork leads the viewer into a contemplative state.
Davide’s sporadic exhibitions and public presences underline a specific type of approach to the market: he moves in the independent artistic world by interacting with the experts without mediation. Cedolin focuses on making art in a fluid way and without following the paradigms dictated by the hype of the moment.
“If painting is a vessel, a tool for the artist, the artist is a vessel, a tool for art. For me, painting is a ring inside a chain: there’s no actual creation, but what happens is an imaginative materialization. I become a medium between the medium (painting) and the most remote areas of the spirit. […] For my painting, I concentrated on the borders of light zones – crepuscular, dawn and sunset – as they sneak into the darkest folds of emotions to uproot and recontextualize them”.
Learn more about the ‘Between Liguria & Tuscany’ art gallery and its featured artists, and discover the Art & Music projects by Grand Hotel Portovenere.
