Istituzione Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa is pleased to present, for the first time in the exhibition spaces of Palazzetto Tito, a South American artist: Brazilian painter Patricia Leite. With a career spanning decades, Leite is now being honored with her first solo exhibition to be hosted by an Italian institution.
This exhibition is part of an ongoing series curated by Milovan Farronato, dedicated to leading figures in international painting, with the aim of offering an in-depth perspective on the most significant voices in contemporary art. The exhibition brings together works created specifically for this occasion in the artist’s São Paulo studio, offering a comprehensive view of her most current artistic explorations.
Cold Water reflects on central themes in Leite’s practice. The title pays homage to a painting included in the exhibition while also evoking a particular state of mind – an instant of sudden clarity, vulnerability, and awakening – akin to the invigorating shock of cold water on the skin, returning us to what is essential, raw, and immediate.
In Cold Water, Patricia Leite brings to Venice landscapes that belong not only to Brazil but also to an interior realm shaped by silence, pauses, and diffused light. Her canvases do not depict places; they dream of them. A vertical waterfall becomes a thought descending slowly; a cave opens like a refuge from which to observe the world from afar; fireworks tremble on the water like blurred memories.
At Palazzetto Tito – a space that seems to preserve ancient voices and empty rooms ready to receive – Leite’s paintings settle gently, allowing each image to become a threshold, a breath, a suspension of time.
On the cover: Patricia Leite, Cold Water, 2025, oil on wood, 220 x 160 cm
Source: Mendes Wood DM
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