Laura Muolo (XX) - Nel deserto i pesci..

Description:

Nel deserto i pesci... ("In de woestijn de vissen...")
Oil on canvas, 80 × 80 cm (canvas size, unframed), 2026. Unique work, no edition. Signed in oil, bottom left. Without frame, stretched on a stretcher, ready to hang. Delivered with the artist's signed authenticity certificate, including the accompanying poem.

In the middle of an empty desert stands a blindfolded child barefoot, dressed in white, facing a sky where a school of red fish drifts calmly among sculptural white clouds. At the child’s feet wildflowers break through the dry ground.

Beneath the soft melancholy this is a painting about hope and perseverance. The desert represents a harsh, disillusioned world. The blindfold is paradoxically not a loss but a strengthening: cut off from the outside world, the inner gaze of the child sharpens and it sees the hope for a better world, as it dreams an ocean toward the heavens. The fish above and the flowers blooming from the sand carry the same quiet message: even in the driest place, life and imagination find a way. In the artist’s poem accompanying this work, the dream is “so that hope does not die.” It is an image that rewards daily looking: the longer you look, the more optimistic it becomes.

About the artist

Laura Muolo (Milan, 1975) is an Italian surrealist-figurative painter, based in Rimini. Her work sits firmly within the classical surrealist tradition: in 2023 she was one of ten contemporary artists invited to exhibit alongside paintings by René Magritte, Giorgio de Chirico, Mario Sironi and Gino Severini in the museum exhibition "Piacere, Non sono Io!" (Museo Civico Michele Ruzittu, Arzachena). The kinship is visible here: the serene Magritte-like sky, the hidden gaze, the silent impossibility of fish floating between the clouds.

Her solo exhibitions include the Palazzo dei Priori in Volterra, curated by La Grande Bellezza gallery. She was a finalist of the Malamegi Art Prize (Rome, 2023), has received multiple national and international prizes, and her paintings are in private collections around the world.

Condition: Excellent. Recently completed work, acquired directly from the artist’s studio. No craquelure, discoloration, or restorations. Protective varnish layer applied by the artist (2026).

Provenance: acquired directly from the artist, private collection Belgium.

Documentation: signed, title with dating on the back of the artist’s authenticity certificate.

Shipping: shipped stretched on the wooden stretcher (not rolled), professionally and securely packaged, with track & trace-from Belgium.

The artist’s poem:

Where the shadow of man brings only misfortune,
I shield my gaze, I no longer see clearly,
And I flee into a dream, a pure creature.

Among white clouds that dance gently,
I see an ocean painted in the sky,
And fish that fly, among fleeting flights,
So that hope does not die with my veil.