‘When I look out my window, Many sights to see. And when I look in my window, so many different people to be. When I look over my shoulder, what do you think I see? Some other cat looking over his shoulder at me’
Donovan Leitch, 1966

Galleria Antonio Colombo presents an exhibition by Silvia Argiolas and Elena Rapa, afterthe success last fall of the two retrospective solo shows Little Circus. The show is curated by our good friend Roberto Fantoni, a great connoisseur of many facets of art, literature, rock and countercultures, companion and mentor of a tribe of young artists that gravitate around the gallery. The title comes from the famous song by Donovan Season of the Witch, a hypnotic “cult” piece of timeless psychedelic charm.What mysterious thread links title, music, lyrics and these young artists? Probably the skill and aptitude to make the mind travel out of and into itself, undertaking daring, even reckless explorations while remaining physically still. Probably the knowledge of how to look and see beyond, elsewhere, into the hidden, the soul, the spirit. Or it is a simple association of ideas and emotions that creates an alchemy capable of freeing the imagination and expanding the mind. The world of Elena Rapa explodes in fantastic representation, while that of Silvia Argiolas implodes in its dramatic inner focus.The exhibition features two large canvases alongside a series of smaller works on canvas, panels or paper. The gaze of Elena Rapa is that of a mind-altered Pinocchio melancholically adrift in a contemporary, nocturnal toyland populated by anthropomorphic, mutant plants and animals. Its counterpart here is the symbolic and expressive art, with archaic overtones, of Silvia Argiolas, from which a strange dream world emerges in which serenity seems to be denied and the subjects, like aggrieved souls, establish a dialogue with primordial elements in pursuit of an unstable balance.
A catalogue will be available at the gallery, with texts by Roberto Fantoni and Matteo Guarnaccia.