Beatrice Meoni’s work is characterized by the use of mellow, dense colours, and by gaunt, unadorned figuration that concentrates on minimal episodes, shadows, gleams of light, minutiae or anatomical details. Her gestures are extremely decisive, her brushstrokes simple but rich, her colour palette restrained, with greens, earth tones, and ochres returning frequently in her works. The artist’s recurring subjects refer to the domestic universe and the body, but they are rendered with a hushed intensity, with the placid silence typical of still life. The peacefulness and stasis of the images are just perceptibly interrupted by a dismembered body that suddenly changes its posture to fall into the void, or by a vase that appears, with simple lines, on the soft, opaque surface of a velvet. A vague sense of suspension inhabits her art, which often places the observer in a condition of contemplative intimacy, of erotic complicity, in which the spectator’s gaze is totally absorbed within the visual field of the work. It is a dynamic where the painting acts by attracting the observer’s attention, but seemingly feels, at the same time, a sort of prudery in displaying itself. It is a fear that makes it hold its breath when the spectator’s eyes fall upon it, interrogating it. But it is also a game in which the observer feels the curiosity and surprise of an unexpected happening, far from any foreseeable possibility. It is a reference to an imaginary elsewhere in which spectators can lose themselves in contemplation.
