“Buongiorno, Buonanotte”

Claudia Miatello’s solo exhibition

“It’s supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
 Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious
 If you say it loud enough you’ll always sound precocious” 

(Based on the film: Mary Poppins, Walt Disney)

It was 1965 when the general public went to see the film “Mary Poppins” for the first time. The scene that most tickled the audience’s imagination sees the famous babysitter, played by Julie Andrews, accompanied by the little Banks and the chimney sweep Dick Van Dyke, jump into a “painting” to walk inside it, interact with the painted characters and sing with them “How beautiful it is to walk with Mary” and the famous “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”.

This is what happens with the artworks of Claudia Miatello, a Canadian artist with a clear and original talent, who in the artistic review entitled “Buongiorno, Buonanotte”, accompanies us through the streets, gardens and the most evocative views of Florence. But the one described by the Italian-born artist is not the chaotic city, full of tourists crowded into the historic places that we are all used to knowing; in the artworks on display, the “city of the lily” takes on a more intimate, personal, human dimension. Thus, guided by Claudia Miatello’s delicate and playful style, we find ourselves walking around the “Vasca dell’Isola” in Boboli Garden or sipping a good coffee in the historic Gilli café; from a window we observe the last glow that slowly fades out in the twilight hour, painting tapestries of lights and shadows on the white marbles of the Duomo and Giotto’s bell tower; on a bright morning, instead, we whiz by bike along the Arno river with the basket full of fresh produce from the market or we find ourselves taking an afternoon nap in Piazzale Michelangelo, in the shadow of the David.

Therefore, in a continuous swirl of different scenarios, lights and colorful colors, the artist freezes fragments of daily life in her artworks from sunrise to sunset. The protagonists of these images are stylized figures, with markedly caricatural features, which appear tiny in the presence of the architectural grandeur of Florence; they are “courageous little souls” as the artist herself defines them, who seek happiness in the simplest places. In fact, the characters of the Canadian painter accompany us through the main moments of discovery of life, in a journey that is between precious and fleeting moments of joy, love, pain and fear; it is among these ups and downs of existence, between these successes and failures that are hidden those priceless moments thanks to which the soul breathes and lives.

In an era like the current one that is increasingly gloomy and contaminated by catastrophes and difficulties, Claudia Miatello manages to “remove weight” from the representation of reality, using a narrative language of astonishing authenticity and great lightness; a lightness that never falls into superficiality, but rather a “weightless gravity”. In fact, in the artworks a special connection is created between melancholy and humor, capable of lightening the sadness and removing the bodily heaviness from the comedian. By “gliding over things from above” without having “boulders on the heart”, as Italo Calvino claimed in “American Lessons”, the painter teaches us to recognize those emotions of existence that actually arise from imperceptible moments, from small instants of happiness that hide in the folds of our daily life.

This “immersive walk” inside Claudia Miatello’s artworks is also embellished by a series of texts and thoughts signed by the author Egidio Marchese, artist’s father, which break the boundaries between art and life, transforming life itself into an art form and adding a another layer of depth and beauty to the exhibition.  

Through a polite and somewhat naive style, which winks at the world of illustration, the artist therefore carries on an acute reflection on the wonderful meaning of life that brings to mind the lesson of the famous Disney tale of Mary Poppins. Indeed, in the exciting Walt Disney film, the two protagonists Giovanna and Michele rediscover the sense of wonder that lies behind an apparently ordinary everyday life, through a series of unpredictable and bizarre adventures, such as tea on the ceiling at Uncle Alberto’s, the tour of the world with a magical compass or meeting Mrs. Corry, who sells gingerbread by day and hangs stars in the sky by night.

Even in the artworks on display, although the precise and punctual references in the settings firmly anchor the images to reality, we always come across a little visual calembour, thanks to which the irrational and the extraordinary sneak into everyday life with great naturalness.

With her linear story, Claudia Miatello leads the viewer in the deepest of introspective paths, revealing at the same time how fantasy and the absolute power of dreams, in which Walt Disney trusted so much, can shape reality; this emerges clearly for example in “Florence by day and by night”, in “The colors of nature” or again in the artwork “A new day” where the artist imagines the beauty of a city without pollution, noise and dirt.

Through drawings and watercolours, with the mastery of someone who knows how to stop the story to flood it with emotions, Claudia Miatello accompanies us in atmospheres of light and colour, within an intimate, personal, but also collective in which our complicated and passionate times are reflected. An evocative art that we can admire in the exhibition “Buongiorno, Buonanotte” which pulsates with life, which reaches the senses and remains in the soul; an art that through a great freshness and genuineness of style, as well as a gentle irony, teaches us to know how to grasp the small and imperceptible nuances of life, especially in everyday life. After all, as the Indian philosopher Tagore Rabindranath claimed, “life is a continuous wonder of existing”. 

Virginia Bazzechi Ganucci Cancellieri