Lilac

ALESSANDRO CASAGRANDE

On the occasion of its reopening Galera San Soda is pleased to present Lilac, the first exhibition in Milan by the painter and photographer Alessandro Casagrande.

Alessandro Casagrande was born in Caracas in 1987. He grew up between Pescara and Milan. For the last six years Casagrande has lived and worked in Los Angeles.

The hiatus from ordinary life that the world experienced in the last year prompted Casagrande to start experimenting again with oil pastels, creating a new series composed of 16 large scale works, and 12 smaller works on paper.

Hazy sceneries of surreal domesticity become the vivid backgrounds for a series of enticing nude portraits. Vibrant frames that capture and translate the intimate and melancholic nature of evocative memories: a yearning for softness and innocence that rebukes objectification and chooses day dreams.

This body of work stems its roots from the hidden symbologies of Lilac: a flower with an intoxicating scent, a reminder of old love for few and a token of new hope for many, it is the base that the artist has chosen for most chromatic combinations when using oil pastels.

The versatile nature of this pigment encompasses a delicate metaphor about the relationship between desire and action, gesture and canvas.

Lilac is a radiant homage to the warmth confinement of self-care, where the subconscious meets daylight and the interior meets the exterior.

Book - Dentro

Book - Amore

Book - Diary of a quarantine

Book - Lilac