“Intimate Tales” at Monica De Cardenas, Milan

Text by Micola Clara Brambilla

Drawing—as practice, commodity, medium—exists inside the institution of art; drawing is a reputable province of visual production. And yet drawing likes to abandon its roost inside art and to forget where it belongs. (Wayne Koestenbaum, On Doodles, Drawings, Pathetic Erotic Errands, and Writing).

This is not merely an exhibition, but the result of a bond. A group of friends, as well as artists. And as often happens among friends, things take shape without a declared plan, without too much discussion. They unfold almost out of necessity. Intimate Tales is born this way, from a shared narrative that, once begun, reveals deep connections: a common attitude toward drawing and painting, a certain way of looking at 20th-century art, a search that oscillates between everyday experience and imagination. The works on paper by Leonardo Devito, Louis Fratino, Nikki Maloof, Danielle Orchard and Alessandro Teoldi occupy the space discreetly, without excess or explicit statements. There is no spectacle, rather a silent dialogue that connects them, as if each work were tied to the others by a natural understanding, made of closeness and mutual respect.

While painting sediments and defines the image through successive stages thanks to its layered construction over time, drawing is by its nature more unstable, closer to thought at the very moment it takes shape. It is an immediate, sometimes precarious medium, allowing artists to explore the ambiguity and elusive nature of images. The American poet and critic Wayne Koestenbaum describes drawing as the need to verify (or disguise) an internal fantasy by giving it a visual form. Koestenbaum affirms that drawing, with its unpredictable nature, lacks the “intelligence (or the ordinariness) to remain accountable to its masters.” The condition evoked by Koestenbaum—drawing as a medium able of perfectly capturing the movement of the mind—finds its concrete expression here: for these artists, drawing is not just a medium or a preparatory study, but a mean of research, an autonomous language, a place where vision and imagination meet without the need for a definitive outcome.

The artists in the exhibition are almost all painters. What binds them, beyond friendship and the sharing of a certain perspective on reality, is the way they refer to the painting of the first half of the 20th century—a time when realism became magical. The influences of Picasso and Matisse, the elegant and austere mark of Casorati, the intimate and silent dimension of Morandi, the hyperrealist details of Gnoli, to name just a few, emerge in their exhibited drawings and, more broadly, in their entire body of work. Each of their practice is nourished by layered memory as well as by the urgency to recover a realism capable of elevating the everyday and the domestic to a place of intimacy, but also to a space for projecting desires and imaginaries.

Leonardo Devito (b. 1997, Florence) envisions painting and drawing as territories of suspension. Deeply inspired by the Renaissance tradition, Devito begins from an initial mental image then lets painting guide the creative process, expanding, transforming, and ultimately dissolving it. Intuition and technique influence each other, giving rise to an evolving narrative in which the playful element plays a significant role. The drawings in the show seem to evoke a dreamlike context, where explicit references to 14th- and 15th-century Italian art intertwine with contemporary elements creating a “fragmentation of periods.” In this dialogue between eras and languages, Devito combines realism and the fantastical, shaping alternative worlds where the familiar turns into something unexpected.

Louis Fratino (b. 1993, Annapolis, Maryland) conceives drawing as the primary method to give shape to thoughts, a process meant to physically respond to the “abstract, wandering, circular, and obsessive interior dialogue that we all have.” In preparation for his painting, Fratino often draws in sketchbooks: this is a space where ideas can emerge unfiltered, spontaneously and confessionally, including the most intimate and vulnerable aspects. For the artist, this process is deeply tied to the use of humble materials: carbon, graphite, pigmented powder, watercolor, scraps of paper. Elements without intrinsic value, yet capable of bringing a subject to life without self- consciousness, unedited.

In drawing lies the very essence of art: it is a manifestation that comes to life out of pure necessity because it could not be otherwise. In his series of drawings dedicated to his partner and to his friend and artist Shota Nakamura, Fratino captures moments of closeness and intimacy. These works not only document his personal world but also evoke a universal sense of connection, making drawing a privileged medium for narrating an affective dimension.

Nikki Maloof (b. 1985, Peoria, Illinois) explores the world of everyday objects through a series of pencil drawings in which food, the table, and domestic elements occupy the center of the composition. Her democratic gaze on objects allows us to observe a domain devoid of hierarchies: a bowl of fruit, the hands of a family sitting around the same table for dinner, a fishmonger’s counter, an earthworm climbing a plant stem—all carry the same visual weight, regardless of their functional or symbolic value. The home and domestic environment are spaces suspended between reality and staging, with a theatricality and attention to detail reminiscent of Domenico Gnoli’s work. Like in Gnoli, Maloof isolates and enlarges objects, imbuing them with a presence that makes them more than mere everyday items. The variety of objects depicted by Maloof does not reveal the surrounding world but, on the contrary, operates through exclusion, inserting itself into the world, constructing an image that seems to want to reveal the very essence of things.

Over the years, the female body and motherhood have become central themes in the artistic research of Danielle Orchard (b. 1985, Michigan City, IN). These themes find expression in a series of charcoal drawings that explore the intimacy and physicality of these experiences. Her female figures, inspired by the modernist tradition, stand out for a sensitivity that delicately conveys the emotional sphere of care and protection. Her way of representing the bond between women and their own bodies reveals a deep intimacy with these themes, which emerge not only as iconographic subjects but as lived experiences. In Orchard’s drawings, bodies brush against each other, intertwine in gestures of affection and contact communicating a palpable tenderness. The works on display capture those moments of intimate closeness that are not confined to an individual experience but define the bond between mother and child, between mother and mother.

Alessandro Teoldi (b. 1987, Milan) constructs his narrative through visual fragments collected over time: snapshots saved on his phone, as well as images retrieved from a personal archive. The body of collages on display is created by painting on paper with oil, acrylic, pastel, and charcoal. The result is an in-depth analysis of the collage process which Teoldi began exploring over the past two years as a natural evolution of his work with fabric. This transition represents an extension of his artistic research, where the act of cutting and layering becomes an investigation into memory, composition, and the transformation of matter. Through the layering of materials, Teoldi creates still lifes in which everyday elements and traces of personal experience transform into a reflection on the physicality of things, on the simplicity and intimacy of objects. In this sense, his work engages in a dialogue with the 20th-century Italian painting tradition, exploring the still life as a space of formal synthesis as well as of emotional tension.

Participating artists:
Leonardo Devito, Louis Fratino, Nikki Maloof, Danielle Orchard and Alessandro Teoldi

at Monica De Cardenas, Milan
until May 17, 2025