Mariella Comba

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Carlo Franza

In the Milan-based studio of painter Mariella Comba, I have just finished to see all her works, from the oldest ones to the most recent. It is a really large number of works, enlivened by several points of interest, but mainly characterized by bright techniques like watercolours.
Comba has worked with Stefano Cavallo, an Apulian like me, from San Michele Salentino, a painter who uses strong colours, and it is this school, “the southern school”, that influenced her works.
From a cultural viewpoint, our painter grew up in Milan, in those years when the whole Italian art was experiencing a great boost.
We were in the Sixties-Seventies, at the core of the most advanced research works that certainly did not influence Comba, except for that new way of spreading colours and the lively way of moving light in the postimpressionist art.
The landscape, and not only the Italian landscape, effectively represents her pictorial itinerary.
The countless trips in Europe, Spain and France, in places loved by Christianity like the Compostela sanctuary, are well represented by these painted perspectives.
Of great importance are the landscapes portrayed, where one can see near and far elements, and where space gains a new dimension between sky and earth, between sea and green.
The Italian landscape, which is influenced by long stays in Romagna, in Cesenatico, is represented by a series of seascapes; the painter's stay in Apulia, in the Brindisi area, or to say better in the country surrounding San Michele, offers the painter the opportunity to interpret the colours of the sky or the southern land, the blue-tinted and light blue colours of the sky, the country with its green olive trees, the brown and nearly red earth, perspectives of white villages, characteristic inhabited and desert farms, and also a wonderful series of trulloes, those Apulian buildings typical of the country world.
All these are works that emerged and asserted themselves in the context of major national prizes and that were exhibited in prestigious shows in Milan and Apulia, as well as in other Italian cities.
Also very significant is that typical and mysterious womanly sensitiveness that characterizes Comba's works and that has certainly emphasized some choices and strengthened certain themes, for example the floral world.
Several renowned critics have talked about Comba, underscoring all the authentic characteristics of her painting, mainly the precious bent for colours, which are always treated and laid with surprising emotional creativity.
Today, her shows, among which those recently organized at the Ars Italica and at the Barcon gallery, both in Milan, still attract several renowned collectors and estimators who have always appreciated the way of using colours, the effective use of tones, and the everyday themes that have contributed to analyzing the Italian landscape more exhaustively.
That's why today Mariella Comba can be considered one the most important painters in Italy, thanks to her sensitiveness and mainly the technical use of the light and colours that enliven all her works.