Dry pastel: this is the preferred medium of Paola Boni, a first-rate and surprising interpreter of reality, whose prowess and exceptional technique allow her to create lively, vibrant compositions.
Paola Boni’s works are full of transparency, glazing, and glimmers of light that permeate the objects, bringing them closer and placing them right before our eyes, almost as if we could touch them.
Her remarkable ability to depict the beauty of nature derives from her careful, meticulous observation of the details and the influence of the Flemish artists is clear and sensual: a dalliance with colour through light brushstrokes, softened by pigment, struck by a ray of light that teases out their vital essence.
A crystal, an apple skin, wrinkles in a tablecloth, and even the back of a chair give the observer a sense of the magic and the atmosphere of the space, which takes on symbolic characteristics, suspended as it is in a static scene, immobile and timeless.
Paola Boni manages something that other artists often overlook: she brings together technique and poetry, design and form, composition and harmony, with a style that is always personal and original. It’s interesting to look at her other works in order to understand how her love of pastel has made her such a perceptive artist and interpreter of reality. The quest for perfection, an attempt to depict colours and light as truthfully as possible, makes each of her works a challenge and a tribute to the beauty of the world.
Paola Boni often participates in exhibitions and national and international events. In March, she will be taking part to International Italian Art 2009, and in the exhibition “The Colour of the Soul”, to be held in Cremona, with an accompanying volume featuring one of her works, at the Forlì Fair from 27th March to 30th March, and at a collective exhibition at the Brick Lane Gallery in London from 14th to 27th April
Anna Maria Bonavoglia