Silvia Righetti: Painting Grief, Memory, and Climate Through Abstraction

Italian artist Silvia Righetti, whose practice spans painting, writing, architecture, and immersive theatre, is the subject of a feature on AATONAU. Righetti, who studied architecture at IUAV in Venice and later collaborated with French set designer Gérard Cholot in Paris, uses abstraction to explore silence, memory, and emotional states. Her ongoing series 'Cells of Time' emerged from the terminal illness and death of her father, triggered by a hailstorm in July 2023 that struck the family home near Lake Garda. The series, created between 2023 and 2026 in Berlin and near Lake Garda, uses acrylic and ink on canvas to transform hailstones into symbols of grief and endurance, while also addressing climate change and excessive natural phenomena. Righetti's mentors include sculptor Federica Marangoni, with whom she co-curated a 2024 exhibition at the Murano Glass Museum, and artist Angiola Churchill, with whom she collaborated on 'White Space' at Palazzo Reale in Naples. She also worked with Finnish artist Kaarina Kaikkonen in New York. Righetti, now based in Buckinghamshire, UK, plans to expand 'Cells of Time' into an installation with sculpture and sound, collaborating with a musician. Her work often incorporates hypnotherapy to access subconscious imagery, and she is interested in borders and unstable identities, as seen in pieces like 'Misty / Mystical Giudecca' and 'Lavarone'.