Paola De Pietri

The title La nuova casa (‘The New Home’) refers to a commonly shared yearning or longing which is unlikely to be satisfied. As well as providing shelter, the home provides a feeling of identity; whether it be in a corner of the city or in the countryside, it becomes part of our habitat and, for this reason, it is also a distinctive feature.

Excerpt from ‘Another time, other than me’ by Sergio Risaliti published in the exhibition catalogue Paola De Pietri, Lala Meredith-Vula, Alberto Peola Gallery, Turin.

‘…she uses to slow down the rhythm of this time, the flow of visions and the impressions of reality itself. This deceleration leads to inique experiences, opening to the other and to the unforeseen. And the ‘other’ is the dissimilar or the foreigner the marginalised or the outcast. The unforeseen may be a landscape, a detail, an oblique view, or a situation. But it is nevertheless a revelatory manifestation of a different or unexpected time of existence. An existence immediately characterised by a special aura, as Walter Benjamin would say.
When we observe the world through this time (the duration of which is described both by Merleau-Ponty and Roland Barthes), it is as though things might still be caught up at a magical and astonishing distance. An insurmontable distance that turns them into icons. And, like icons, objects and people are portrayed by Paola De Pietri with a close eye on detail and veracity. And yet they are given shape by an indelible but significant metaphysical form of representation. They are figural forms rather than figurative reproductions, sought in the passing of everyday time and lifted out of the reality that would hold them hostage. Now at last they emerge from the stream of time to become authentic, absolute creatures. Or possibly they are authentic because they are inique and absolute.