biographical notes

Antonella Masetti Lucarella, an internationally known artist, works in Milan since more than 30 years. She creates paintings with mixed techniques.

She has exhibited in individual and group events in art galleries, museums, cultural centers and art fairs in Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Hungary, Peru, Japan, the United States.

I believe that the necessity to have a dialogue with one’s own shadow is a leit-motiv of every artist: I have always been obsessed by beauty as a shelter, as an antidote against anguish and death.

Women, their soul, their sexuality, that complex combination of spirituality and eroticism which is their hallmark: since ever I am intrigued by the feminine identity, by this apparent fragility hiding, most of the times, an extraordinary strength and the ability to simultaneously weave several emotional webs: thousand and thousand “fils rouges” interlaced over a lifetime.

Hence the representation of feminine figures rescued from commodification and seriality, and restored to solemnity and to their extraordinary power of seduction.

This excruciating feminine seductive skill is sometimes unaware in my works, defined by the simple position of a hand or by the knowing looks between two girls.
Other times it is deliberate, built like a complex theatrical scene: then an earring, with its delicate threads, becomes the unique attribute of a face or the mysterious refinement of a dress is the leading actor of the scene.

Probably I paint what I instinctively know best, being myself a woman.

Moreover, being an Italian artist, consciously or not, I blend my historical memory (the Renaissance) with my personal life. Often the miracle takes place: the figures acquire their own identity that the viewers, last ring of the chain, perceive empathetically and thus the circle is complete. It is the mystery of art!

Selection of individual exhibitions:

Selection of group exhibitions:

• National Museum – Budapest, Hungary: Exhibition of Italian Artists, 1990
• Galleria Il Cannocchiale, Milan, 1995
• National Museum – Cuzco, Perù: First Exhibition of European-American Artists, 1999
• Accademia di Romania, Rome, 2015
• Palazzo Pepoli, Bologna, 2015
• Seconda Biennale di Salerno, 2016
• Museum of Art and History (MOAH) – Lancaster (California), USA: Exhibition “Italian Summer”, 2017
• Biennale di Salerno 2016-2018-2021-2023
• Gallery “The Loft at Liz’s”, Los Angeles, USA 2018
• Gallery 825 (LA Art Association), Los Angeles, USA 2019
• Galleria Villa Di Donato, Napoli 2021

Art Fairs:

• Art Fair “Artissima” (with Galleria Dantesca Fogola), Turin, 1994-1995-1997-1999-2000
• Art Fair “Europe-Art” (with Galerie Cigarini), Geneva, Switzerland, 1995 - 1996 - 1997
• Art Fair (with Art Options Gallery), The Hague, the Netherlands, 2006
• Art Fair (with Art Options Gallery), Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2007
• Art Fair (with Strenger Gallery), Tokyo, Japan, 2009
• Art Fair Spoleto International, Spoleto, 2016
• Art Fair, Lausanne, Switzerland 2018
• ST-ART, Strasbourg, France 2018
• Art Up!, Grenoble, France 2024

Auctions

• Christie’s Fine Arts – Benefit Auction in favour of AIL (Italian Association against Leukemia), Milan, 2004
• Casa d’aste Poleschi – International Auction, Milan, 2014
• Sotheby’s Fine Arts – Benefit Auction in favour of “Il Volo” (Comunità Terapeutica) – Palazzo Isimbardi, Milan, 2014

Her works have been reviewed by the most important art critics in Italy and presented in all the major art and fashion magazines.

In the year 1991 she won the III International Prize organized with the support of D&D Art Magazine.

In the year 2000 she created the sketch of the stamp, issued by Poste Italiane (the Italian General Post Office), on the occasion of the Fifth International Multidisciplinary Symposium on Breast Cancer Disease held in Rome.

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