Until June 19, 2025, Longari Arte Milano gallery, located inside Palazzo Cicogna at Corso Monforte 23, is hosting the exhibition Il sogno in una stanza, a solo show by contemporary artist Silvia Ciaccio (Milan, 1985). The exhibition project is presented as an investigation of dream space understood as a true dwelling place of the soul. The path traced by Ciaccio leads the viewer through images that stand as thresholds of access to another dimension, where dream and reality overlap until they merge. The exhibition design transforms the gallery space into an intimate and cozy environment, where the blue color of the walls helps build a nocturnal, suspended, almost meditative atmosphere. The room thus becomes the place of dreams: not simply a container for the works, but an integral part of the visual narrative, an exhibition device that aims to solicit sensory and perceptual involvement.
Silvia Ciaccio’s works are articulated in a variety of pictorial surfaces and materials, reflecting the artist’s desire to explore the different expressive possibilities offered by matter. The canvases take on the appearance of inner landscapes, outcrops of visions that are configured as tools for the investigation of the soul. Painting, in this context, acts as a generative act: images are both a product of thought and a source of further images, in a process that is constantly renewed. The exhibition proposes a visual itinerary where gateways and thresholds, unexpected openings and heavenly paths alternate. Elements that invite the viewer to take a path in search of the immaterial, in a precarious but intentional balance between presence and absence, between form and dissolution. The works seem to contain a cosmic energy concentrated in the space bounded by the canvas, offering the viewer an opportunity for immersion in the poetic and symbolic dimension of the dream.
A relevant element of the exhibition is the dialogue established between the contemporary works and a selection of ancient art works from the gallery’s collection. The encounter generates a subtle but effective confrontation, allowing the two temporal dimensions to interact without forcing. The sculptures, selected for their symbolic and formal significance, participate in the construction of the dreamscape outlined by Ciaccio. Prominent among the antique works on display is a 15th-century Sybil’s head, characterized by an absorbed gaze and elaborate hair made of curls and torchons that evoke mythological or fairy-tale female figures. Next to it, angelic figures in wood and terracotta appear, dating between the 14th and 15th centuries. Their expressions, gestures and postures visually complement the tissue paper angels created by Ciaccio, forming a kind of celestial chorale that spans the centuries.
The juxtaposition of ancient and contemporary is neither provocative nor nostalgic in intent. Instead, it is grounded in a common tension toward the metaphysical, toward a dimension that lies beyond tangible reality. The selected sculptures share a character that recalls the original meaning of the term “metaphysics,” from the Greek μετά τὰ φυσικά, which literally means “that which is beyond physical things.” In this sense, they fit perfectly into the narrative constructed by Ciaccio, helping to expand the temporal and conceptual horizon of the exhibition. The color choice of the contemporary works further reinforces this impression of suspension and transcendence. Deep, velvety tones of blue, alternating with light celestial veils, dominate the scene, with occasional pinkish accents emerging in the distance. It is a palette that suggests silence, introspection and a desire for elevation. Painting thus becomes a means of representing not what is seen, but what is perceived at the edge of consciousness, in the moments when dream and memory merge.
Silvia Ciaccio was born in Milan on March 25, 1985. After completing classical studies, she graduated in Aesthetics with a thesis entitled Un colore solo. Poetics of monochromaticism. Her artistic research develops around the sky-earth relationship, a dialogue that is also reflected in the choice of materials: from the fragility of tissue paper and Japanese rice paper, to the solid essentiality of corten steel. His path is nourished by intense and foundational readings, including The Poetics of Space by philosopher Gaston Bachelard, The Alchemical Psychology by psychoanalyst James Hillman, and texts from Eastern philosophy. The artist makes numerous trips to Japan, where she discovers a deep affinity with the culture of the Rising Sun: the aesthetics of things, the perception of a cosmic energy in balance between fullness and emptiness, the tea ceremony as a ritual suspended in time, and the synaesthetic relationship with nature touch her deeply. She is currently developing a new project inspired by shinrin yoku-the “forest bath”-which explores a total sensory immersion in the forest landscape.
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| Silvia Ciaccio transforms Longari Arte Milano gallery into a space between dream and matter |
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