The proposed project for Paris Internationale 2024 brings together the practices of represented artists Amber Andrews (1994, Antwerp), Leonardo Devito (1997, Florence, Italy) and Francesco Gennari (*1973, Fano, Italy).

In Andrew’s work there are references to art history and architecture that are playfully interwoven with elements such as myth, literature, and the artist’s own experiences. Carefully merging these references, she tells her own version of the story through a distinct and highly-developed visual language, with the resulting images conveying themes of grief, love, and loneliness. With this new body of work, Andrews explores the nuanced and often overlooked connection between women and cats, viewed through a domestic and female lens, while also delving into their cultural and historical symbolism. In this sense, cats become metaphors for the balance women seek between nurturing others and maintaining their own identity and independence. She is particularly interested in the ritualistic aspects of self-care and caregiving. These acts can be seen as metaphors for women’s historic roles as caregivers and homemakers, yet they also reflect hidden strength, self-reliance, and resilience.

While Francesco Gennari continues his constant exercise in the practice of self-representation, by presenting a new photograph, La solitudine del Satiro, 2024 and some new bronze pieces, La Forma del Cielo nella mia casa, 2016. His works are always conceived in the most classical sense and where titles are a poetic tool that accompanies the observer in the fruition of the work. His practice is based on minimalist formal characteristics and a metaphysical approach, his media are selected not for their outward appearance but for their inherent specificities.

Leonardo Devito’s creative process takes inspirations from Renaissance elements with an underground and experimental twist. The new high-reliefs here presented, “are true miniature theaters, three-dimensional snapshots that, thanks to their semi-enclosed structure, presuppose an external observer, in addition to the audience, often present in the paintings as well, making the relationship between seeing and imagining more complex—something that theater, and later cinema, brought to its peak tension and expression. In these works, action is reduced to a gesture, a whisper, or a glance, to a moment of rest. The subjects of the high-reliefs resemble protagonists of epic mythologies but are not heroes; they are dreamers in fairy- tale settings who seem to have dressed up to stage a new game.” Elena Lydia Scipioni