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That Moment Between Breaths: Luisella Traversi Guerra and the “Zwischen Atemzügen” Exhibition

That Moment Between Breaths: Luisella Traversi Guerra and the “Zwischen Atemzügen” Exhibition

Have you ever stood in front of a painting and taken a deep breath completely spontaneously, without a second thought? As if your ribcage and lungs wanted to give a physical response to the artwork before you… Italian artist Luisella Traversi Guerra’s new exhibition in Berlin begins precisely with this bodily reaction. The showcase pauses us right at that uncanny threshold even with its title: Zwischen Atemzügen. Neither an inhalation nor an exhalation; merely that timeless moment of suspension between the two.

Guerra’s paintings do not appear before us as finished, static objects. These works do not demand an intellectual reading or a rational analysis from the viewer; on the contrary, they await to be breathed in, to be experienced bodily. Instead of depicting the world from the outside, the artist seeps inside it, completely dismantling that sterile distance between the phenomenon and the observer.

Nature is Not a Motif, It is a State of Mind

The flowers, branches, or vast fields in full bloom that materialize on the canvases are never photographic or figurative depictions. The forms are in continuous motion; expanding, dissolving, and reshaping themselves by transforming into vibration and rhythm.

In Guerra’s sculptural brushstrokes, nature is not a motif being painted; nature itself comes alive on the canvas as a state of existence. Everything that is visible is merely the first layer of the iceberg.

Four Rooms, Four Seasons, Four Rhythms of Breath

Cleverly utilizing the architectural layout of Luisa Catucci Contemporary, the exhibition spans across four distinct rooms. Each room corresponds to a season; however, this is not an imitation, but an entirely sensory focal point of experience. Alongside the paintings, handmade Ikebana compositions arranged by the artist’s own hands and essential volatile oils diffusing through the rooms trigger memory and the senses:

Spring (Inhalation): A moment of opening and awakening. Forms are still ambiguous, volatile, and filled with possibilities. A beginning suspended between appearing and disappearing.
Summer (Full Breath): A realm of absolute saturation, expansion, and concentration. The outpouring of color and material is so intense that the gallery space almost pulls you in, swallowing and enveloping you.
Autumn (Slowing of the Breath): The place where internalization and deceleration begin. Color tones deepen, and brush gestures become more cautious and contemplative. A room where time loses speed and residues settle.
Winter (Retention of the Breath): A moment of suspension in time and absolute pause. The painting is reduced to its most elemental, most refined form. The emerging silence is not an empty nothingness; it is an extremely sharp, intense, and charged tranquility.

Walking Inside the Painting

As time passes, Guerra’s painting practice distances itself completely from the anxiety of fixing form, transforming material into a pure language. Pigments sometimes concentrate, and at other times melt away on the surface. Consequently, the viewer does not look at the paintings from the outside in the exhibition; on the contrary, while walking between the rooms, they position themselves right inside that atmospheric domain constructed by the artwork.

Zwischen Atemzügen is a meditative journey that deciphers not only the cycle of seasons, but also human cycles of expansion, pausing, turning inward, and gaining clarity. Located near Rosenthaler Platz, one of Berlin’s dynamic art destinations, the gallery offers a wonderful oasis for all no-26 readers wishing to soothe their minds and breaths during this summer heat. Make sure to add it to your list before the beginning of August.