If we ask ourselves what the generative nucleus of Silvia Canton’s paintings is, the original matrix from which they are derived, I believe that it can be identified in the need and urgency to externalize important emotional contents that cannot find a different way of being expressed.

Feelings and moods, depicted in their variety, complexity and co-mingling, with various modulations and resonances, are the leitmotif of her work, which the exhibition displays with great effectiveness. A common thread that runs through all of the paintings, connects them to others, and gives her work an unmistakable impression.

This painting is a painting of her soul, even if the visual themes appear mainly inspired by nature and, specifically, by the plant world. Trees, shrubs and grasses create situations in which emotional experiences are reflected. They evoke a tonality of affections, which from time to time are presented as yearning or depression, wishes or hopes, enthusiasm or melancholy.

The style of Silvia Canton is nourished by echoes of Art Nouveau painting and we can also clearly identify the attitudes and motifs of Symbolist imprint. However, every reference is shown in a new, vital and lush way, far from lacking in style. In fact, the Art Nouveau flavor emerges from a profound assimilation of the informal temperament and manifests itself with characteristic and persuasive intonation.

Soft and sinuous lines release movements that are full of energy, create vortexes and whirlwinds, force fields driven by impulse and tension, thrusting, sometimes upwards and sometimes downwards, but mainly folding in on themselves, to wrap and enclose.

The modulation of brushstrokes is configured to define the stylistic figure of the artist and ranges from the controlled, defined signs of winding graphemes to joyful, instinctive gestures. What we witness is a skillful composition of figurative elements, mainly arboreal, from fin de siècle masters, with excerpts from atmospheric, anti-naturalist paintings of the late twentieth-century.

The decisive and expressive characterization of Silvia Canton’s paintings also stems from a marked sense of chromatic contrasts, from the tonal contrasts of pure colours to a light and dark dialectic that imparts a bright and occasionally dramatic intonation. A tension which generates a result of balanced forces, to which the title of one work and that of the entire exhibition allude. It is this carefully managed balance that governs the harmony of the canvas and gives it a coherence and unity this artist has never renounced.

These pictures provide the keys to their reading and suggest how we can approach them. The balanced tension that permeates through them articulates and composes the differences, and rather than dispersing them, distributes them over areas of differing intensity, collecting them at focal points that can be considered genuine poles of attraction for the observer’s gaze. The visitor is, so to speak, taken by the hand, accompanied and guided by the structure of the work itself, which offers a vision whose density is never in contrast with the happy immediacy of the encounter.