Gondole a Venezia

Coloured pencil and ink pen on paper

33×24 cm / 13×9.4 in, 2020

Not available

I wanted to represent Venice away from its most crowded and tourist-filled image. It is a city where you can be surrounded by an enormous number of people and, a few minutes later, find yourself in a silent street, in an almost empty square, among hanging laundry, still boats, and traces of everyday life.

Gondolas are one of the city’s most recognizable symbols, often associated with the tourist experience. Here, however, they are not moving, they are carrying no one, and they do not occupy the center of a spectacular scene. They remain still, almost resting, in a side canal.

I wanted to suggest a calmer, suspended Venice, far from the constant flow of visitors. A city that, precisely when it seems almost deserted, becomes real again.