In Leonardo Bastiani’s paintings we find ourselves suspended between referential vision and subjective interpretation. Looking at them and contemplating them we realize that these compositions generate disorientation when they become recognisable. They capture expectations and reduce his work to a constant search for the indecipherability of the reality that surrounds us. It seems that the artist plays hide and seek with his compositions and it is possible to extricate oneself from this interpretative jungle thanks also to the symbolism that is central and catalyzing in his work, allowing the spectator to wander into the personal history of this artist and to read in the stratification of his our daily life operates. In this context, archetypes take on a fundamental role, being absorbed and rejected, they give life to a new type of representation. In his work we can read his formative years in Florence very well. To effectively read his art we must move between everyday life, art history, religion, intimacy and academic tradition. The densely layered figurative compositions evoke the complexity of contemporary experience, apparently focusing attention on internal facts of his life, his family on images of the world around us. The compositions alternate domestic scenes with symbolic images of our contemporaneity alongside collages of cultural and political symbols, creating a visual metaphor that is stratified, concentrating forcefully like a waterfall in his painting, intertwining personal memory with the cultural history that surrounds us. Ultimately what appears on the canvases is only what “we” are.
Art Fair
Art Madrid, Aria Art Gallery 2025
Exhibitions
Collective Exposition, Galleria Latina, Rome 2026
Hammer Time, Zaratan, Lisbon 2025
Sobras da Goela, In Goela Studio, Lisbon 2025
Open studio, Fabrica Moderna ,Lisbon ,2023
The Wall, Altri spazi, curated by Sergio Risaliti, Museo del 900′, Florence, 2019
Forme nel verde, with Michelangelo Pistoletto curated by Gaia Pasi, Palazzo Chigi, San Quirico d’Orcia, Siena, 2019
Poison Remedy, Inter-University Center for Dance (HTZ), curated by William Wheeler and Stefan Pente, Berlin, 2018
Sentences, curated by Sergio Risaliti, Museo del 900′, Florence, 2018
Solomon Project, curated by Cecilia Luschi, Fabio Fabbrizzi, Andrea Ricci, Francesco Taormina, Yoram Ginzburg, Davide Cassuto, Itzik Elhaif, Gilad Duvshani, Yair Varon, Florence / Ariel University, Jerusalem, 2018
Painting curated by Fezzi Giovanna, Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze 2017
Accademia in mostra curated by Pier Luigi Tazzi Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Firenze, 2016 ,
Camera Chiara, performance Uffizi curated by Robert Pettena 2016
Start Point curated by Giandomenico Semeraro, Campo Marte association Chille de la Balanza” Florence 2014
Souk curated by Pier Luigi Tazzi, Ex3, Firenze 2013
Artist Residence
Solomon Project, curated by Cecilia Luschi, Fabio Fabbrizzi, Andrea Ricci, Francesco Taormina, Yoram Ginzburg, Davide Cassuto, Itzik Elhaif, Gilad Duvshani, Yair Varon, Florence / Ariel University, Jerusalem, 2018
Poison Remedy, Inter-University Center for Dance (HTZ), cura- ted by William Wheeler and Stefan Pente, Berlin, 2017
Teacher’s resume
Teacher with the project “Drawing from a live model in Lumiar” Lisbon 2023
Teacher in the paintings workshop in the “ Pedro Arrupe School” in Lisbon 2022