New Gallery opens at Borgo Pignano near Volterra

Tuscany welcomes a new contemporary art gallery at Borgo Pignano, a 14-room luxury boutique hotel in the countryside outside of Volterra. The property, documented since the twelfth century, is now in the loving hands of Sir Michael Moritz and his wife Harriet Heyman, distinguished collectors of twentieth century British art. Their most recent enterprise: the opening of the Borgo Pignano Gallery.

Works by the two artists complement each other

Consistent with the owners’ desire to create an art haven within the deep nature and history of Tuscany, the new gallery will host temporary exhibitions on a regular basis. The estate has been closely connected to the arts from the moment it was purchased, and there is an active collaboration with the Royal Drawing School in London; Pignano also offers scholarships and residencies for up-and-coming artists, supporting and encouraging art and culture in many forms. The Gallery space in a restored agricultural building has been designed to offer a flexible arts space for exhibitions, courses, and one-off events, giving guests a greater chance of direct contact with artist residents. In addition, visitors to the hotel will also find private collections of 20^th Century British art sitting harmoniously alongside artwork from emerging international artists throughout the 18th-century Villa.

The owners of this luxurious Tuscan getaway know that their discerning clients are potential buyers of contemporary art (moreso than the average visitor to say, San Gimignano or Volterra), so the new gallery is a kind of showcase for artists you might find exhibiting in other locations in the territory. Olga and Andrea’s works can be found in San Gimignano, Casole and Cortona, and seeing them here might key you into a network of other galleries nearby.

The inaugural exhibition is called Vitalità, which opened in mid August and runs until October 31, 2016, contains works by Olga Niescier and Andrea Roggi, two friends whose creative visions subtly and profoundly complement each other.

A canvas by Neiscar is on the far wall — A canvas by Niescier is on the far wall

The Polish-born Niescier (b. 1978) “finds her inspiration in both the tradition of sophisticated Japanese screen painting and the elegance and the symbolism of the late gothic Sienese School” to create works that examine nature on a macro and micro scale. She works not only in canvas but also with performance and with textiles; she has in fact provided research and consultancy in textile design for major fashion houses Armani, Burberry and Fratelli Rossetti. She lives and works in San Gimignano. Canvases richly vibrant in layered textures emerge by way of this original expressive language as Niescier explores the depths of life energies, the vitality that penetrates the dense structures of grasses, fields and trees just as in our human emotions.

Roggi, on the other hand, is an Italian sculptor living in the Valdarno area. He’s made numerous monumental sculptures that you can find around his area, in which he explores nature and the human body. By the means of the antique lost wax technique, Andrea Roggi creates figures captured in movement, with their vital energy arrested in a specific moment. Love, Nature and Knowledge twine throughout his work in the search for the essential forces of Life. The unfolding discourse of their work unites the two artists in an inspiring exchange of energy and Vitality.