To mark the eagerly awaited annual event with Genova START 2026, our gallery is delighted to present the exhibition “The Circle”, marking the debut of the British artist Emily Bartlett at our gallery.

The exhibition takes place against the evocative backdrop of Genoa’s ‘White Night of Contemporary Art’, celebrating the start of the new season with an international and original programme. Through a selection of works created and conceived specifically for the occasion, Emily Bartlett presents her stylistic exploration to our audience for the first time, offering a profound reflection on the theme of inner transformation. A unique opportunity to discover a new artistic voice with a European outlook in a vibrant and engaging atmosphere.

In Emily Bartlett’s exhibition, the work moves beyond literal representation to draw on lived experience.

Grown up in the English countryside of Dorset, Bartlett spent part of her youth in Genoa, an experience that proved crucial to her artistic development. The Ligurian atmosphere, with its light and chromatic energy, runs through her entire body of work as a recurring theme. This indissoluble bond now finds a natural evolution in the solo exhibition ‘The Circle’, a symbolic continuation of a cycle that began many years ago.

The creative impulse is not predetermined by an idea, but seems to emerge naturally, bringing to light human connection, memory, transformation and the way in which every experience leaves its mark on us. Memories and emotions are spontaneously translated into painting through a non-figurative language that transcends the figurative to lay bare its emotional essence. By juxtaposing shapes and colours free from the constraints of reality, the artist engages directly with the inner self.

The circle, the fulcrum of her artistic vision, symbolises continuous transformation and guides a creative process of construction and destruction, in which the layers of paint even conceal handwritten diary entries. This shape is also his signature: each painting concludes with a hand-drawn circle that acts as a seal, like a full stop declaring the work’s journey complete.

EMILY BARTLETT

Bartlett was born in 1990 in Weymouth, England, in the lively county of Dorset.

Today she lives and works in Liverpool. With her instinctive approach to painting, the artist transforms the canvas into a field of visual forces: her works celebrate spontaneous and vibrant artistic gesture, where every dynamic brushstroke and every splash of color tells a story of inner expression and vitality. The fluid and organic composition, reminiscent of natural forms such as flowers or inner landscapes, challenges conventional representation, inviting the viewer to make an emotional and personal connection.
Her signature is a circle, representing her vision of life, in constant motion and rich in connections, but also interpretable as the final point in the completion of the artwork. The circular motifs, almost always present in the works, reminiscent of the concentric circles made famous by artists such as Kandinsky, act as focal points, bringing rhythm and a sense of rotational movement to the composition. The artist assiduously returns to her old works for inspiration, as part of her concept of the circle.
The painting is experienced as a page in a diary, on which the artist sometimes writes and then hides the words with bright colors. Fundamental is the musical presence of instrumental pieces accompanying the creative act, an element that allows for a clear and profound inner dialogue between the work and the artist.