CathArt Gallery presents “DEI LUOGHI E DELLO SGUARDO”
Geography of Memory: Between Urban Scenes, Landscapes, and Natural Landings

A two-person exhibition by IRENE DAS NEVES and MARCO VERDELLI
Curated by Carla Pugliano

Guest: Samuele Corsalini with Francesco Gemmo

Opening: Saturday, April 11, 2026, 5:30 PM

At CathArt Gallery – Varese
Entrance from Via Salvo D’Acquisto

«I thought of how many places there are in the world that belong so deeply to someone…» — Cesare Pavese

“PLACES AND THE GAZE” arises from the authentic encounter between two artistic personalities driven by the same urgency: to move through places in order to grasp their essence. Looking at a place is never a neutral act. It is an encounter. And, like all encounters, it leaves an indelible trace. This is how Marco Verdelli and Irene Das Neves engage in dialogue through their works, as both celebrate the places they love, reinterpreting them and capturing the vibrations they have evoked within them. Painting and photography touch and correspond in a silent tension, suspended between natural landscape, urban context, and visceral perception. Reality is translated into a sensory dimension: scenes cease to be mere backgrounds. Places become emotional maps where signs, silences, and margins express the soul.

In Irene Das Neves’s photographic works, the sea and dunes become the stage for rarefied moments: waves breaking in the wind, restless seagulls rising until they blur into one another. Solitary presences carve fleeting reflections among footprints, while an unexpected mirror opens into plays of planes and duplications. These are images in which movement is never purely physical, but becomes a field of force and freedom. Alongside these visions are scenes of life immersed in the charm of street art, where urban marks intertwine with everyday experience, making the city space a witness to belonging and visual stratification. The instant, the unexpected, the precarious balance, and the simplest gestures reveal an ironic and deeply human register that transforms an ordinary scene into a powerful narrative.

Marco Verdelli moves within a more intimate and visceral sphere. His creative horizon traverses layers of history, from the ancient architectures of the Sacro Monte of Varese to other evocative geographical contexts. Corners steeped in memory are reworked as inner presences rather than mere views: here Verdelli’s painting manifests as a direct, intimate, almost necessary act. Verdelli paints in the heart of the night, in a state of recollection and concentration that has accompanied his work for many years. Only recently has he chosen to share this production, long preserved as a personal diary. In his watercolors, glimpses, walls, and sacred paths emerge as evanescent apparitions, entrusted to an essential mark that holds the echo of time without ever yielding to description. Light does not define contours, but suggests them; lines do not impose themselves, but quietly surface within a deep and silent perceptual texture.

The two-person exhibition by Marco Verdelli and Irene Das Neves reveals an affinity between two distinct yet deeply connected languages that mirror one another: on one side the movement and energy of reality, on the other its slow interiorization.

Enhancing the event will be guest Samuele Corsalini (Varese, 1991), a well-known author and cultural communicator. Corsalini is engaged in promoting the history and identity of the Varese area through editorial projects, public talks, and outreach activities. He wrote the volume Quel che non sai di Varese, linked to a project of the same name launched in 2024, dedicated to discovering stories, curiosities, and lesser-known fragments of the city. Through his work, he promotes a participatory cultural narrative, attentive to the relationship between community, territory, and identity. He will be joined by Francesco Gemmo, storyteller, portrait artist, and digital creator active in the tourism sector. Since 2023, he has produced content dedicated to Varese and its surroundings, combining photography and interpretation. Since 2025, he has collaborated on the project Quel che non sai di Varese.

ARTIST NOTES

MARCO VERDELLI – Landscape as Inner Listening
Marco Verdelli was born in Varese in 1957. In the 1970s, he attended the State Art High School “Angelo Frattini” in Varese, where he experimented with various painting techniques—oil, engraving, etching, woodcut, ink, pastel—until identifying watercolor as the medium most aligned with his sensitivity. He was guided in his training by the artists of the “Gruppo Montefeltro” (Cascioli, Cicoli, Galoppi, Paoli, Piersantini), developing a particular attention to color, material, and formal balance. His connection with the Varese territory is the core of his research: hills, woods, lakes, natural and sacred landscapes become openings for listening and reconciliation with himself. Verdelli observes, internalizes, and returns sensations rather than images onto paper. His painting is vital energy, in which each brushstroke holds an emotion.

IRENE DAS NEVES – Photography as the Poetry of Memory
Born on March 15, 1956, in Setúbal, Portugal, Irene Das Neves has lived in Italy since 1979 and resides in Varese, where she deepened her training in applied aesthetics. Always drawn to the harmony of forms and the details of living things, she finds in photography her privileged language of expression. When she photographs, Irene reveals her hidden soul: shadow becomes light, the instant expands into eternity. Her shots transform reality into visual poetry, allowing intimate perceptions and echoes of memory to emerge. Photography thus becomes a tool for deep investigation, capable of conveying atmospheres and states of mind with authenticity and intensity.

The exhibition is curated by Carla Pugliano, artist and founder of CathArt Gallery. Recently, Pugliano was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Triennale, exhibited at the 60th Venice Biennale and the XIV Florence Biennale, and was honored at the Chamber of Deputies. Since 2025, she has been Artistic Consultant for the Atlante dell’Arte Contemporanea (Giunti Editions), which will be presented at the MoMA in New York.

EVENT INFORMATION
Exhibition dates: April 11 – April 23, 2026

???? Opening hours:
• Tuesday – Friday: 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM
• Saturday: 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM / 3:30 PM – 6:30 PM
• Sunday: 3:30 PM – 6:30 PM

???? Opening: Saturday, April 11, 2026, 5:30 PM

Location: CathArt Gallery, Varese
(Entrance from Via Salvo D’Acquisto)

???? Admission: free

Contacts:
+39 392 8081554
myartcharlotte@gmail.com
https://carlapuglianoartist.com/cathart-gallery/
Facebook: CathArt Gallery
Instagram: @cathart_gallery

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