So much of painting is prefaced with thinking, letting the mind wander over things, and yet you cannot control what you return to, what your eye is drawn to, or what your unconscious offers up. - Nancy Cadogan
Nancy Cadogan's 2024 solo exhibition ‘Stanza' will run from 12 May to 2 July 2024 and is a personal journey reflecting two decades of painting on Lake Como. Consisting of approximately 20 works, many painted specifically for this exhibition, ‘Stanza’ follows her 2021 exhibition in the Keats-Shelley House Museum, Rome and her critically acclaimed exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London. Cadogan’s paintings explore dreams and poetry, moments of stillness, contemplation and the infinitely changing landscape of Como itself. This is the first international exhibition to take place in the historic Torre delle Arti Bellagio, a public art space in the heart of the lakeside town.
The artist sees this exhibition as a meditation on the many writers, artists and musicians who have found inspiration in the waters of Lake Como. “This atmospheric landscape has provided a place of solace and reflection that has attracted Romantic writers such as Percy and Mary Shelly and Wordsworth, as well as Longfellow, Mark Twain and Manzoni, not to mention the artists Turner and Ruskin,” says Cadogan, who has made new paintings in response to the writings of Mary Shelley, who spent a summer on the lake with her husband, the poet Percy Shelly. She wrote ‘It surpasses in beauty any other place I have seen with the exception of the islands of Killarney’ and wrote about her walks through the landscape in her Rambles in Germany and Italy.
‘This show is about the transformative quality of this lake in the foothills of the Alps, a protected pool surrounded by snow-capped mountains, with hills rising up so sharply on either side, creating an intense geography that is reflected in the stillness of the lake,’ says Cadogan. ‘Lake Como has been a part of my painting practice for 20 years and is a constant source of inspiration. For me time slows down here. The fact that the landscape is so unchanged allows you to be in time, rather than of your time – and that is what I am trying to convey in the work.’
The exhibition takes place in the Torre delle Arti to highlight the cultural resurgence of Bellagio, where the area’s historic, family-owned hotels are re-opening. The town is investing in its culture and wants to present more international artists. As Luca Leoni, the President of the Lake Como Hotel Association comments: ‘The city council of Bellagio is very excited to be welcoming this great exhibition. Nancy is a true friend of Bellagio, and it is very common to see her around the village or on the lake shore finding inspiration for her works of art. Nancy is really part of our community and we are looking forward to the opening of ‘Stanza’ at the Torre delle Arti.’