Residency workshop for eight Painting students
Coordination: Prof. Eclario Barone and Prof. Floriana Celani
With the collaboration of: Prof. Francesca Romana Morelli and Prof. Oriana Impei
Workshop led by the artists: Pierluigi Isola and Gabriella Pace
Partners and institutions involved:
‘Portraits on Stage 2025’ theatre and visual arts festival in the municipalities of the Aniene Valley, organised by the association Settimo Cielo
Municipality of Anticoli Corrado, RM
Villa Ulivella in Anticoli Corrado, by Rita Colozzi and Ralph Westbury
Programme and objectives:
The workshop aims to offer a hands-on activity; an itinerary through Landscape painting which, starting from the observation of a series of visual materials and reproductions of particularly significant historical works, allows, through the use of appropriate techniques, working methods and materials, students to experience their own personal immersive relationship with the sensitive data, leading to a series of small paintings and sketchbooks that testify to each student’s personal development. Landscape, therefore, as a particular form of operational meditation in a technical-artistic key that is measured with light-colour-form, in an attempt to bring them together in a perspective and atmospheric interplay.
It is a workshop where both appreciative-critical activities (observation and commentary on images and reproductions used as examples) and technical-operational activities (exercises first in the studio with colours and then with open-air painting experiences) will be carried out.
Different materials and techniques will be used to render the image of reality in pictorial terms (watercolour on paper and oil paints on different media). Techniques similar to those used by the Macchiaioli will also be experimented with and used, observing and painting from life and using oil paints directly on small wooden boards. Therefore, an en plein air meditation that will alternate with work in the studio, keeping in mind the idea of Cézanne’s ‘petite sensation‘; a synthesis of visual impression and deep emotional immersion.
The workshop in residence at ‘Villa Ulivella’ will take place in Anticoli Corrado in the Aniene Valley, home to a Modern and Contemporary Art gallery with important examples of landscape art from the late 19th century to the 1960s. Professor Francesca Romana Morelli will present the works in the historical and cultural context of their creation. The expert from the Calcografia Nazionale, Gabriella Pace, will propose the creation of ARTISTS’ BOOKS in memory of the artist’s notebooks from the Grand Tour.
On 29 June, a final exhibition of the works created will be held, entitled ‘Frammenti di Paesaggi’, as part of the programme for the ‘Festival Portraits on Stage ’25’ of the Settimo Cielo Cultural Association in Rome.
Curriculum of Pierluigi Isola
Pierluigi Isola was born in 1958 in Rome, the city where he lives and works.
Born into an artistic family, he began to engage with painting very early on, in his father’s studio where he had the opportunity to meet artists such as Renzo Vespignani, Riccardo Tommasi Ferroni, Angelo Canevari and Romano Parmeggiani.
During his training years, he was a student of artists such as Piero Guccione, Alberto Ziveri, Marcello Avenali and Nato Frascà.
In 1982, he obtained a diploma from the painting course at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.
From 1981 to 1983, he taught courses in Engraving Techniques at the Calcografia Nazionale in Rome.
He has been a permanent teacher of Art and Image in lower secondary school;
He was the course leader for Painting Techniques at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.
1992 Premio Arte 1992, organised by Giorgio Mondadori, with the work entitled Il prospero inganno (painting section). 1998 International Contemporary Art Exhibition XXIV Premio Sulmona 1997 – Purchase Prize of the Associazione Culturale Il Quadrivio, Sulmona. 2020 First prize at the XXI Porticato Gaetano exhibition – Gaeta. 2022 International Contemporary Art Exhibition XLIX Premio Sulmona 2022 – Honourable Mention from the jury. 2023 He is among the artists invited to participate in the audience on 23 June with Pope Francis in the Sistine Chapel.
CV of Gabriella Pace
Gabriella Pace was born in Rome on 28/02/1963.
Diagnostic officer, registered on the lists of those qualified to practise as a restorer of Cultural Heritage, Restoration of works of art on paper – conservation methodologies for printed graphic works, drawing and painting on paper media.
In her roles at the MIC since 1985, she has served at the Restoration Laboratory of the Uffizi’s Department of Drawings and Prints, where she has restored drawings from the Medici collections, in particular the pieces exhibited in the major exhibition on Santi di Tito (1986), and has carried out work on pieces in the collection.
Since 1986, she has been working at the Laboratory for the Restoration of Works of Art on Paper of the Istituto Nazionale
– currently Centrale – per la Grafica, where she has studied in depth conservation strategies focused on the history of the collection of graphics (drawings collected in the Corsini Volumes; the Resta Codex of Palermo) and the knowledge and methodologies of restoration of works executed on modern papers.
In particular, she curated the study of the papers and watermarks of the Neoclassical Collection, the results of which were published in the exhibition catalogues: Francesco Bartolozzi incisore delle Grazie (1995) and Angelika Kauffmann e Roma (1998).
She carried out the restorations for the exhibitions Luigi Bartolini alla Calcografia (1997) and Giuseppe De Nittis incisore (1999). She has taken part in numerous publications, among the most recent Le Antichità Romane: sei preziose legature a confronto in Giambattista Piranesi. Matrici incise 1756-1757 (2014), Morandi acquafortista. Supports and technical choices in Morandi in Calcografia. The collection of plates at the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica (2015) and Appia Regina Viarum (2023).
Among her most recent works are the restoration and museum display of the donation of Tullio Gregory’s collection of prints, published in the dedicated catalogue (2020), and the restoration of the works for the exhibition Giambattista Piranesi. Sognare il sogno impossibile (2020); on this occasion, she participated in the publication of the multimedia book https://www.piranesimultimediale.it/ with the contribution La visione dell’antico. Piranesi nelle legature del Fondo Corsini (Piranesi in the bindings of the Corsini Collection).
In 2022, she designed the restoration of eight Corsini bindings for Art Bonus (currently approved and co-financed by the Ministry of Culture), which had been closed to consultation due to a phenomenon of degradation of the binding leather.
She is a member of the teaching board of the ICPAL Higher Education School, where she has taught a module on the Restoration of Prints and Drawings since 2013. Among the most recent exhibitions she has worked on: Zigaina. Prints, editions and artists’ books (2024) and Acquisizioni da Parmigianino a Kentridge (2024).
She has directed numerous restorations and organised literary meetings and poetry readings related to artist’s editions. Since 2019, she has been in charge of the Laboratorio di Restauro Opere d’Arte su Carta at the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica.