I really don't know if, in a future art history manual of our times, these so admirable paintings of Stefania Russo will find a space, a citation; even only in a footnote. I don't know: because I don't know which critic would want to consider them, adding them to some well-known group, to some trend, to some current that the market accepts as valid, worthy of a press mention. Stefania, in fact, doesn't do all that much to obtain a little fame. She locks herself up in an atelier that is actually a shop, moreover, located in a tiny street of an anonymous suburb of a not so lively city with regards to contemporary art. She doesn't call up critics or gallery dealers, she doesn't write emails to important people. And she vacations in Greece; but not in the most worldly and trendy of islands, rather among the mountains inland, among the sheep and ruins of Byzantine churches. However, I must say, she paints beautifully. Is this talent worth something, this silence of hers and obstinated choice of applying herself to a profession that in many, today, consider obsolete? Probably this is all not so important to achieve fame, success. But it does count a lot (in fact it's all that really counts) for those who still today, after decades of proud and also well-justified rebellions and distructions and comical faces against all academies, continues to desire to enjoy through the eyes of painting; that which for millenniums, from Aristotle onwards (and well before him, already in the Pala eolithic caves of Lascaux, of Altamira) attempts, on walls and canvas, to follow the ancient anxiety of the "mimesis": that is to try and employ all of one's abilities, every dexterity of the hand to imitate through artifice that which the eyes see all around them. The reproach that today, and by now more than a century, one can make to painters like Stefania Russo is always the same: they are not inserted in the mainstream of modern civilization, and, are therefore, excluded. Yes, but, in past millenniums, and in those that will come, a leaf is always a leaf, a lemon is always a lemon, today like thousands of years ago and thousands to come. Stefania paints these things which are timeless, and she does so showing off a lightness and admirable precision, that she seems to possess with no fatigue whatsoever; and it's for this reason that she stirs up admiration and wonder, like a tightrope walker on a cord, or a ballerina on her toes. She knows how to do things that not any of us could repeat: what else could one want from one who, as a profession, handles colors and paintbrushes?
The choice to compose still lifes as subjects also using elements of contemporary, or abstract forms, is a sign of safety and awareness. The quality of the implementation is excellent choice for the sophisticated technical and complex, which results in soft images, nice and classy.
The young artist feels a witness of his time and is aware of the frailty of our existential identity. Her gaze isdirected to what is not the result of conditioning or leveling operations conformist. Her "trace" materials are asign of revolt, a way to feel driven from individuality and the desire to impress in his inner journey, the sigmaof personal visions of life that give new meaning to the search for revitalizing values to allow for thedeciphering of their conquered experiential field.
