Nicoletta Ceccoli. "Scary Tales"

The Erarta Museum presents an exhibition by the artist Nicoletta Ceccoli, in whose puppetry world unchildish passions are played out.

Nicoletta Ceccoli has been illustrating children's books for over twenty years, collaborating with American, British, Italian, French and Taiwanese publishing houses. In 2001 she was awarded the prestigious A. H.C. Andersen as the best illustrator of the year. Despite the fact that the author has dozens of personal exhibition projects around the world, the artist's exhibition will be held in Russia for the first time.

In the works of the author, presented in the museum, the eyes are attracted by the puppet beauty, tenderness and youth of the heroines. Innocent, pure faces emit a muted light that seeps through the misty twilight. The longer you look at these pretty faces, the more obvious the authentic cruelty of a folk tale appears in the author's works. A headless hare, a cake with an eye torn out, a gingerbread man's head bitten off - all this is the work of the heroine herself. It is like a licorice candy, captivating with its bright packaging and striking with an unexpected, pungent taste.

The conventional puppet world, where the plots invented by the artist unfold, resembles a scene. Here, childish passions are played out: in front of the viewer, as in a play of the 16th century, seas of cranberry blood are spilled, and the main character revels in her own loneliness and melancholy. Girls, obeyed by mice, fish, birds, interact with the world of animals much better than with the world of their own kind. The light emanating from the heroines does not warm anyone, there is no joy in it - it makes it uncomfortable and cold, as if holding an ice cube in your hands. The author's fairy tale by Nicoletta Ceccoli does not explain the world, but only gives rise to new questions: who are all these heroines and what awaits us in the final?