In his paintings Paolo Cristiani exchanges with us an important part of our working and leisure life: travelling.  We pass through airports and hotels as if they were a sort of second home, but differently from our everyday homes they do not need our attention, they are made for us to be as comfortable as possible, but they do not have any kind of connection with us other than being a means to allow us to go through long distances as if the world was a small place. Spaces where we can let us go completely because we cannot contribute or add anything to them but our completely anonymous presence.
In these spaces our mind stops from the everyday worries, we have to wait: wait to do the check in, wait to pass the passport control, wait to get on the plane.  And our main activity becomes the one of observing the space around us, other people like us moving in this strange anonymous space, which does not have any of the elements of our everyday environment..  In the airport we are alone with ourselves and we can let us go to a completely different kind of thoughts than during our normal working life.

It is this atmosphere of solitude and detached observation that Paolo Cristiani has been able to suggest us into his paintings with such a great sensibility. A great traveler himself he shares with us in his paintings the reality of this particular world.
A natural consequence of the Airport series has been the Hotel series, where rooms of various hotels around the world, identified only by a number, seem to have been painted on the canvas when the artist was still there.  There is no more the large space of the airport, but a smaller world of a few square meters. The artists shows to us the few items which suggest the presence of the hotel guest. No person is represented, but we have the feeling to hear behind us the breath of the occupier of the room, we can feel his presence there.

We welcome this first exhibition of Paolo Cristiani in Shanghai  with the hope that it might contribute to connect Western art to the Chinese audience.

Leda Fletcher

10th May 2007