Viola Leddi

In I saw stars turn into dark coals, Leddi brings together new paintings and ceramic sculptures that blur the lines between imagination and memory. Her use of diverse subject matter evokes a fragmented sense of reminiscence. Titled after a text by 12th century Benedictine nun and polymath, Hildegard von Bingen, the exhibition draws inspiration from a passage describing an otherworldly vision in which von Bingen’s field of sight was crowded by sparks that collapsed into ‘black coals’ as a migraine took hold. Self portrait with migraine (2023) and Girl with migraine (2023), depict female figures in a state of intense suffering, imbuing the scene with a sense of fractured chaos. The subjects are consumed by their pain which can be understood as a metaphor for the emotional affliction and sense of disenchantment after the end of a love affair.

Leddi’s artistic practice is rooted in inquisition. Her imaginative, figurative paintings are the product of a laborious and intricate process. The artist begins with preliminary sketches on paper before transposing them onto Photoshop to experiment with an array of colour palettes. Leddi then works with an airbrush technique to meticulously translate the intricately detailed composition onto canvas.

An inquiry into the psyche is present throughout Leddi’s painted works. Titled after the term used to describe an intense fear of pregnancy and childbirth, her Tocophobia paintings are replete with symbolism. Within this series, the spiders serve as harbingers of irrational terror. In each scene, Leddi deploys symbols associated with marriage and fertility, which are retraceable to genre and still life painting. The artist couples this symbolism with a palette derived from the aesthetics and narrative abilities of 3D horror video games.

Leddi’s visual language is a mediation between reality and fantasy, building compositions that play with the idea of collective and personal memories. A trace of architectural modernism runs through the ceramic sculpture series entitled First Times, rejecting ornament in favour of asymmetric compositions and geometric forms. Fired using a process derived from the technique of raku, the sculptures’ surfaces incorporate the burnt imprint of organic materials such as dead plants, tobacco, and women’s hair, leaving behind their ghostly touch. The sculptural cityscapes are translations of intimate moments recounted to Leddi by her friends, each inspired by the architecture of the locations where significant romantic experiences took place, for example First time I made love on a terrace (2023) or First time I kissed a girl (2023). Reminiscent of ruins, the sculptures pay homage to the power of memory and the nostalgic connections we make to a place. The ceramic sculptures sit atop plinths specially designed for the exhibition by Andrea Magnani.