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Rita Pedulla’ has been living in the beautiful village of the Castello di Poppiano for years. Together with ter husbnad and other artists, she has created a microcosm where art is lived in every moment of the day.

Here, also thanks to the support of Countess Guicciardini, grand admirier of all art forms, Rita has reached an interior serenity which allows her to love life.

Her paintings are the representation of the different moods which have awoken in her since the 90s, when she realized that painting, in addition to being a passion for years, was also able to become her profession.

After her artistic studies and a career as graphic designer: “In a certain moment of my life, when I found myself alone,” she tells us, “I felt the need to paint. I produced paintings which for me were an expression of pain, but people liked them. They found them vital and began to buy them. That is where my art shows, together with a friend who lived here, began”.

Rita was happy, because painting made her feel free: free to express herself, but also to manage her life without the chains of normal work rhythms which often force you to give up many important moments of the day, like taking beautiful walks through nature.

“I haven’t stopped since that moment,” she says, “not even in 2002 when I became pregnant with my first daughter. I often take hints from life events: trips, moods, specific moments . I remember an art show that I did for the Tuscan Region whose theme was ‘women walking’; therefore, women’s feet, legs in movement. The show went well because it mirrored my desire in life to move ahead, to advance, to go beyond”.

We ask Rita how much living in this area affects her work. She answers that, “since  I was little, I saved many objects for when one day I would move to the countryside. My dream was always this. There are too many beautiful things here: leaves, stars, the fireplace, whispers of the seasons, all very important things for my painting; in this silence I better incorporate feeling as well, In fact, in one of my collections, “the secret soul of plants”, which I will present at Villa le Piazzole in Florence in April, I remember that it was a beautiful spring. I began to work outdoors among the flowers, leaves and birds. In these paintings, I painted faces of women immersed in nature with a particular technique, using real leaves and flowers”.

To better exhalt this empathy with nature , Rita will accompany her next show with music, because the ear can hear in the air that which the eye can see. Often a pianist friend of hers accompanies her shows.

Rita hasn’t forgotten her origins, and in fact, for the show she is preparing in Venice, she will bring paintings that tell about the South, the Calabria which she carries in her heart. She goes there every summer to meet with many artist friends, including Piero Pelù.

“When I reach for my roots, I am happy”, she explains, “because there I find a real atmosphere: the sea, the land, the colors, the perfumes, everything calls to me”.

In fact in these paintings, full of color, Rita represents symbols of the South which are dear to her: the wheel, the sea, the mermaid, the land, the saints, the houses. Her art represents more instinct than a precise technique; much emotion, “because I want to immediately see what I have inside” she says.

And in fact, the soul of this artist shows more in our meeting; her capacity to communicate with the public, through paintings which tell a bit about all of us, with the joys and pain of life.

We say goodbye, hoping to soon admire her work at a show in San Casciano, where she maintains a beautiful memory of a show held a while ago.

Silvia Luis

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