From July 5 to August 2, 2025, Agarte – Fucina delle Arti inaugurates the Galleria del Conte Giovanni, a new gallery project within the historic Castello di Fumone, with the exhibition “Transformations in Journey”, featuring works by Antonella Iris De Pascale, curated by Alessandro Giansanti.
The exhibition is a “container” of exclusive works, including a selection of unpublished pieces and historical canvases by the Florentine artist Antonella Iris De Pascale. Over more than 40 years of artistic production and research, she has explored and reinterpreted the concept of the “soul” and the “soul’s journey.” This exhibition marks the third chapter of the evolving and itinerant monographic project titled “Transformations in Journey.”
The project began in 2020 in Tuscany, then moved to Puglia, and now reaches its third stage in the evocative setting of Castello di Fumone. The curator Alessandro Giansanti explains:
“The idea is to represent key moments from forty years of Antonella Iris De Pascale’s painting career in relation to her main themes: dance, journey, and the human being. In these three thematic ‘containers’, Antonella works with mixed media, combining images, photography, painting, and details from places she has visited. It’s an evolving exhibition, almost like a ‘tourist journey’ through the artist’s memory of places.”
As visitors explore the exhibition, these concepts become clear: the artist’s work and research are deeply inspired by places, events, and specific elements she encountered during her travels. These experiences have enabled her to create artworks defined by the fusion of characteristics from regions like Salento, Argentina, Morocco, and Andalusia — always closely linked to the idea of the “soul’s journey.”
“I deal with the soul: the soul of places, of people — the soul as that invisible part of existence which I represent through places and situations. In my journeys, both physical and psychological, I tell small stories. I often begin with a photographic base, and then reinterpret it,” says Antonella Iris De Pascale, who has devoted much of her artistic and professional life to this work. For about 25 years, she has also been committed to the study of psychology, working as a counselor and art therapist, using various creative tools to empower inner resources.
The exhibition is structured into three sections:
The first section, “Dancing Life”, connects the concept of “life” to that of the soul, which the artist defines as “the invisible energy that cannot be seen, but exists in places and people.”
In this series, dance is always present — interpreted as movement — because, as one caption reads: “Dancing is a sublime way to declare that I am alive.”
These works also include references to the landscapes of Andalusia, photographed, elaborated, and transformed by the artist in post-production.
The second section features works inspired by places the artist has visited over the years, such as Salento, which she links to the Tango of Buenos Aires — a symbol of passion and love. Morocco, too, holds particular importance, as a place of profound transformation for the artist.
One caption reads: “Traveling, in the end, is choosing to live more intensely, to discover that the unknown is not to be feared, but embraced — because it is there that the truest part of ourselves is hidden.”
This section also includes works depicting France, Provence, Mexico, Africa, and, of course, Italy.
The third section interprets the journey as “encounter” and “destiny,” developing the idea of travel as a dynamic between fate and destination.
Here, the central theme is humanity and existence, portrayed as “the man who wears masks to survive, to hide, sometimes to play with the world and with himself. The man who allows himself to be deceived, protected, and yet still gets lost in illusions, dreaming fragile dreams unable to bear the weight of reality. The soul. The man who falls, gets hurt, but never stops searching.”
In this same spirit, the artist reinterprets characters such as Marilyn Monroe — both the compulsive eater and the carrot-dieting diva — as well as Virgil Oldman, the protagonist of Tornatore’s film The Best Offer, in a sociopolitical key.
Oldman, the art collector, is portrayed as a man who connects only with his portraits of women — his collection of lovers. He is emotionally barren, incapable of love, aware only of what he contemplates in solitude. Eventually, the women from the paintings rise up as ghosts that turn against him. When he believes he has found love, he is deceived — tricked by his own buried feelings.
Equally powerful is the work “Lights on the Stage of Madness,” where five characters are each assigned a specific pathology — a reflection of the artist’s belief that “we are living in a century of madness.”
The city of Florence also features prominently in her work, particularly with references to the Futurist movement and their spirit of rebellion.
A true transformation in journey, in a voyage that never truly ends — because the soul is eternal, and life is in constant transformation.
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