Emilio Gola's Intimate Portraits of Adolescence at De Cardenas

Emilio Gola, born in Milan in 1994 and a 2021 graduate of Marco Cingolani's class at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, paints intimate scenes of himself and his friends in states of abandon—on sofas, on summer evening lawns. His recent solo show at Galleria De Cardenas featured oil paintings with a warm reddish ground, conceived as torch-lit nocturnal bivouac walls. Gola's figures often gaze directly at the viewer, creating a three-way pact or a mute dialogue with an off-screen third party, reminiscent of operatic duets by Wagner and Puccini. Critic Giacomo Agosti notes that Gola's analytical decomposition is less successful than his achieved complicity, especially in a portrait of a friend with a dog. A painting shown at Miart depicts a boy on a daytime lawn, holding his head and gathering wildflowers, with a stolen crop framing a book and tennis shoes. Agosti contrasts Gola's delicate, interior listening with the expressionist, strong-contour treatments of adolescence by other young artists. Gola's work, while appearing hyperrealist on iPhone, offers a more distant temporal stimulation in person, recalling Bertolucci films but ultimately asserting the artist's own gesture.