Talking to Strangers at Night

Galleria Richter Fine Art continues its exhibition program with a solo show by Vera Portatadino (Varese, 1984). The exhibition, titled Talking to Strangers at Night, is accompanied by a critical text by Ilaria Gianni.
Talking to Strangers at Night takes shape as a reflection on alterity, understood as that which, even in the greatest proximity, remains ungraspable. The encounter with the image, as with the other, opens a space of attention, knowledge, and transformation. It is the time of evening, in the unfolding of summer: the air is warm, jasmine is in bloom, the sky is open.
The paintings on display have been created over the past two years and arise from a constellation of shared experiences — encounters, readings, moments of intimacy — which painting does not render as memory or narrative, but as a field of intensity.
Vera Portatadino’s painting develops through a practice grounded in slowness, attentiveness, and emergence, giving form to images that elude univocal narratives. Her works construct environments in which bodies, landscapes, and gestures appear as transient and interconnected presences, while the pictorial surface unfolds as a palimpsest of layers and veils, where what appears is continually revealed and withdrawn. Vision is partial and diffuse, often mediated by distance, opacity, or suspension; the compositions, poised and unstable, bring light and darkness into dialogue.