Giotto Riva

The work of Giotto Riva (Milan, 1998) represents a captivating intersection between realistic figuration and emotional experience. The years the artist spent at the Barcelona Academy of Art under the guidance of Jordi Díaz Alamà—dedicated to the study of light and tonal relationships—were fundamental to his development.

Yet the skillful construction of his images and the arrangement of his subjects against pitch-black or gently suffused backgrounds also evoke 19th-century Realism and the restlessness of the Scapigliatura movement.

Works such as *Il conflitto* are meticulously crowded, yet each figure seems shielded by its own solitude, as if every scene were revisited in a dream or memory rather than experienced in reality, thus transforming each canvas into an introspective space—a theater where everything is familiar and yet pleasantly alienating.

Text by Giulia Oglialoro