Exhibition Details

The 2023 exhibition programme of the A plus A gallery will begin with the group exhibition 'Phantom Brush' curated by Edoardo Mon- ti.
The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the A plus A gallery and the cultural centre and artists’ residence Palazzo Monti in Brescia, which for some years now has become an international hotbed of talent, particularly in the field of painting. For this occasion, Edoardo Monti has selected the works of Alyssa Klauer (1995, USA), Hannah Tilson (1995, UK) and Danilo Stojanović (1989, Croatia), which were created during their residency.
The title of the exhibition is inspired by Klauer’s painting of the same name, one of the first works that Edoardo Monti saw in the American artist’s studio during his residency at Palazzo Monti, and which un-consciously triggered the dialogue with Tilson and Stojanović. The three of them construct their works based on visual effects, creating parallel worlds, delicate finishes and phantasmagorical de- tails that are expressed in intense psychological spaces, involving and bringing together images dear to individual memories.
Stojanovic’s pictorial poetry, rich in dichotomies and rooted in artistic movements with antagonistic values, enters into dialogue with the paintings of Tilson, who for 'Phantom Brush' presents works that take us back to her Scottish origins. Klauer enters the conversation with small but powerful canvases, dreamlike works that feature layers of saturated yet transparent paint.
Alyssa Klauer is a painter who lives between New Haven, Connecticut and Brooklyn, New York. She received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2017 and her MFA from Cran- brook Academy of Art in 2019. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Museums in Seattle, Fredericks and Freiser Gallery and Sean Kelly Gallery in New York, among others. Her work meditates on ‘Queer Time’, the idea that Queer individuals often experience a second adolescence when confronted with experiences such as co- ming out. Alyssa Klauer’s paintings are characterised by a unique approach to colour. Layers of saturated yet transparent paint are intuitively combined to create a ghostly, iridescent luminosity. She uses composite figures to engage and bring together incongruent images to create an intense psychological space. This fragmentation appears as a transition of the figures between an internal dream space and an external reality.
Hannah Tilson, born in 1995, lives and works in London. She graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2018, and studied at the New York Studio School She completed a postgraduate diploma at the Royal Drawing School in 2021. Hannah Tilson was shortlisted for the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize in 2021.
Hannah Tilson expresses herself through different mediums such as painting, drawing, embroidery and printmaking. Her works are characterised by vibrant, fragmented spaces rich in pattern, Tilson sees her body and the fabrics in which it is wrapped as a landscape/pattern and wants viewers to question what they see and experience this turbulent, fast-moving space.
Danilo Stojanović, born in 1989 in Pula, Croatia, lives and works in Milano, Italy. He graduated in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice in 2018. Danilo Stojanović’s paintings often feature li- quid images that symbolise the fundamental fabric of our lives and at the same time the creative force. Stojanović with his paintings often dips into a cooler, darker palette of aquatic blues, greens and greys, as if the works were all set after dusk. His compositions are characterised by images that merge into one another. But Stojanović’s paintings do not fall into one single genre or painting, they refer to Gothic aesthetics, surrealism, sci-fi thrillers, and still lifes. In all the canvases we find a common denominator consisting of emotional sensitivity and a potential irony, which bounces back in the titles: clairvoyance, heartbreak, and romanticism.
Born in Bergamo in 1991, Edoardo Monti studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. After eight years at Stella McCartney’s in New York, he decided to devote himself exclusively to contemporary art and to apply the skills he had acquired over the years at a local level, enhancing the Lombardy region, with the aim of building bridges between artists, artisans and institutions around the world. He founded the Palazzo Monti cultural centre and artist residence in 2017, where he exhibits his collection and organises 40 exhibitions in five years, including at museums and private galleries. A member of the board of directors of the GAMeC Club, the Italian Art Trust and the selection committee of the Collectible fair in Brussels, Monti is also director of Belle Arti, a cultural association chaired by Massimo Minini, and collaborates with ArtVerona.
In the heart of Brescia, in a historic 13th-century building decorated with frescoes dating back to 1750, there is an unprecedented artist’s residence, Palazzo Monti. Converted into dynamic ateliers, the Palaz- zo’s spaces take on a new life and are used from early morning until late at night by creatives who share their daily lives and experiment with different artistic practices: painting, photography, sculpture, visual arts and design. Selected anonymously by a committee of international industry experts and supported by the direction of the residency’s founder, during their stay the participants are invited to immerse themselves in a unique context conducive to creativity.
To date, over 200 artists from 50 countries have created paintings and prints, works and objects in ceramic, iron, bronze, marble or wood inspired by the savoir-faire of the Italian territory. Completely independent, the project was founded in 2017, financed and curated by Edoardo Monti, a collector and curator of Bergamo origins. Building a dialogue between international artists and the Italian craft community and disseminating it through the works that will travel around the world, is Edoardo Monti’s intent.