Thomas Braida's 'Tacciono i fiori' at Monitor Gallery in Rome

Thomas Braida (born in Gorizia, 1982) returns to Monitor Gallery in Rome after three years with the exhibition 'Tacciono i fiori,' featuring a body of work created over the past year and a half focused on still life, particularly flower vases. The show includes paintings on canvas and paper, installations, and sculptures, all characterized by meticulous attention to detail. Braida's still lifes are not mere representations but carry imaginary, dreamlike, and surreal elements, functioning as modern memento mori that reflect on human indifference. The climax is 'Survival Painter’s kit' (2025), where floral motifs give way to a bare table with a gun and a brush. The works are unsettling due to recurring motifs like small skulls, gnomes, and anomalous cats. Braida's oil painting has become more fluid and vaporous, losing its former materiality. Notable results appear on small paper works mounted with magnets on resin surfaces, with frames becoming sculptural elements that add a three-dimensional quality. Ceramic vases in unexpected forms further emphasize three-dimensionality. A 'Noren' (Japanese fabric partition) with camellias and a sparrow, sewn by the artist's mother, completes the exhibition, acting as a concrete separation that evokes domestic indifference.