A step back, Florence 2017

Giuliana Lazzerini made this little 40 x 40 cm painting, probably in her studio, using a square canvas, some acrylics, and her imagination. I love how the houses are like stacked building blocks, and how she's made a whole town that feels both solid and light as air. I can imagine her thinking about the old masters, but wanting to make something super fresh and playful. There's an echo of someone like Morandi, in the colours and the architectural motifs, but with a more contemporary, almost childlike, freedom. Notice the way the pink ground comes through in places. It’s as if she's letting us in on the secret of how paintings are made. It's like she's saying, hey, it's just paint, but look what we can do with it! All artists are in a big conversation, borrowing and stealing from each other across time. And painting itself is like that—an ongoing process of experimenting and seeing what happens.