The gallery Raffaella Cortese, is glad to present, simultaneously with the exhibition by Kiki Smith, a solo show by the Czech photographer Jitka Hanzlovà in the new space in Via Stradella 1.

The artist has developed her photographical works in different series. She reflects her life, she shows different places, and she explores how traditional themes have been represented in the history of art. The retrospective at the Mapfre in Madrid gives a deep insight into this.

The Gallery presents the series There is Something I Don’t Know. The works show a rediscovery of XV century portraiture. The portrait – as a genre – has been deeply used in the figurative arts and nowadays has a central role in contemporary artistic production and, particularly, in photography. Hanzlovà captures the human beings’ essence. Leonardo da Vinci inspires her, in fact some photos were taken at Palazzo Melzo d’Eril in Vaprio D’Adda where Leonardo lived and worked for a while. The artist defines the setting with great precision and formal strictness. The backgrounds are out-of-focus to make the subjects clearly stand out, like in painting, in order to grasp people’s intimate world. She does not have a narrative intention, but a descriptive one of studying the relationships between the people and the space.

The Renaissance painting and the traditional Leonardo’s outline are evoked through her photographical portrays, which disclose a unique essence of the human being.