Roberto Cafarotti - Papirna Krila

Roberto Cafarotti
Papirna krila (Ali di carta), 2026
Mixed media on canvas 50 x 40 cm
Inaugural work of the series “Mannerism of the Incomplete”

In Papirna krila I wanted to represent the brevity of life and the painful beauty of what remains unfinished. On the left, a female figure with a nude torso emerges with a visceral, almost desperate intensity, illuminated by the dim light of a red lamp. Her gaze is keen, aware of the passing time.
On the right, a second woman is still mostly a drawing: a spectral, suspended presence. Above her rise large wings made of paper, fragile and ambitious. I deliberately chose to leave this part of the painting unfinished because life itself interrupts us before we can finish what we are. We depart leaving bodies, dreams, and stories half-done.
The contrast between the fully painted part and the part left to the naked mark thus becomes an existential metaphor: the flesh that exists and the flesh that never managed to become. The dark background enveloping the figure on the right seems to swallow her, like time that calls us away too soon.
This painting marks the beginning of my series Manierismo dell’Incompiuto: a language that embraces the unfinished not as a defect, but as a deep truth about the human condition.