There are artists for whom engaging with reality is neither a stylistic choice nor a formal allegiance to a particular school, but a lifelong necessity. Paolo Paoletti belongs to this rare family of painters.
Ritorni dal vero brings together at Extra Factory a selection of works spanning fifty years of activity, with a particular focus on the period from the 1980s to the 2000s, alongside more recent paintings. More than a retrospective, the exhibition traces the continuity of a gaze that has evolved over time without ever losing its sense of direction.
Born in Livorno in 1948, Paoletti trained at the Trossi-Uberti School of Art under the guidance of Voltolino Fontani, before continuing his studies at the Passaglia Institute in Lucca. He has painted directly from life since his youth and, from his first solo exhibitions in the 1970s to the present day, his dialogue with nature has never been interrupted.
Landscapes, seascapes, boats, canals, glimpses of interiors and flowers: his painting begins with direct observation, yet moves beyond mere description. Reality is distilled, stripped of the superfluous and reduced to subtle, carefully measured relationships of light, colour and space. It is a form of naturalism in which visual experience becomes atmosphere and reality gradually fades into memory.
As critics already noted early in his career — Bonetti highlighting his refusal to follow passing fashions in order to remain faithful to simple, everyday things, and Andrea Revi praising his mastery of drawing and impasto — Paoletti’s work is deeply rooted in the great Livornese and post-Macchiaioli tradition, without ever becoming confined by it. For him, that tradition is a point of departure: craftsmanship, the slow time of painting, and the courage to stand physically before the subject.
Carolina Martini has described him working by the sea, alone before the horizon and the canvas: the landscape that emerges is not a photographic reproduction, but a reality made more intimate and rarefied. The human figure rarely appears in his paintings, yet its presence can be felt everywhere: in the boats, the piers, the houses. These are inhabited yet suspended places, imbued with a quiet melancholy in which time seems to slow down.
To return to painting “dal vero” — directly from life — does not mean looking backwards. It means placing oneself once again before things, before the horizon, before the world. Ritorni dal vero bears witness to precisely this: a return to familiar places, each time guided by a different gaze.
Extra Factory, Piazza della Repubblica, Livorno
Opening hours: 10.00 am–12.00 pm / 5.30–7.30 pm
