In conjunction with the Milan-Codomina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Sala delle Colonne at Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan hosts Silvia De Bastiani — Water and Peaks. An Olympic Journey Through the Alps, a purpose-built exhibition that speaks directly to the themes and territories of the Winter Games, where painting becomes an immersive, emotional, and scientific instrument.
Curated by Vera Agosti, this solo show is produced by Fabbrica del Vapore – Comune di Milano and the Federica Galli ETS Foundation, with essential support from Alps. The exhibition brings together 30 watercolors—some of monumental scale, measuring up to 2.3 by 4.5 meters—dedicated to the places that host the Winter Olympics. Painting is presented as a living language capable of telling the story of the Milan-Cortina mountains. The display also includes rare albums dedicated to study and pedagogy, as well as photographs of the artist at work. The exhibition design and spatial arrangement, crafted by architect Michele Piva, are clean and minimalist, enhancing the works’ charm and impact and underscoring the virtuosity of the artist. A video installation produced by Alps further expands the visitor’s experience, guiding them through De Bastiani’s distinctive gaze.
Silvia De Bastiani (Feltra, 1981) lives and works in the Primiero Valley among the Dolomites. She is among the most refined interpreters of the contemporary Alpine landscape, producing monumental en plein air watercolors—often in extreme conditions—that deliver an immersive, multisensory experience. Painting becomes a place where light, temperature, silence, scents, and vibrations stored during long hours in the mountains converge. The show also charts an inner journey: through the slow layering of glazes, De Bastiani reveals emotional realms and invites viewers to be moved by the sensations and reflections that accompany her creative life—affecting everyone who traverses existence in their own way. Technical virtuosity is a hallmark of the Feltre-born artist: her command of watercolor on large formats and open-air settings yields expressive depth that recalls the great masters of the past. Yet her painting is not mere technique: it is interpretation, listening, and reworking—a synthesis that makes the essence of the Alpine landscape accessible even to less experienced visitors. In her work, the mountain is not just a subject but an identity language. The Dolomites, the peaks of Veneto and Trentino, and the Lombard, Piedmontese, Aostan Alps, and even Swiss ranges become living matter, approached with a quasi-scientific attention to morphology, geology, vegetation, and atmospheric change. Her painting marries rigor and poetry, precision and contemplation.
Vera Agosti, the show’s curator and a renowned art critic and historian, explains that De Bastiani’s relationship with the mountains is intimate and deeply personal. The artist seeks a total connection with the mountain element, finding in her excursions the silence and wonder of nature—an astonishment she expresses exclusively through painting. The mountains are transfigured through participation and direct engagement, moving beyond mere representation into a sequence of brushstrokes filtered by the artist’s inner processes. The curatorial perspective aligns with the spirit that motivated John Ruskin and the nineteenth-century travelers with sketchbooks and watercolors exploring the Alps, notably the German mountaineer and painter Edward Theodore Compton. De Bastiani’s work also nods to Paul Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire, where mountains are experienced as obsession and geometric, almost architectural decomposition.
The exhibition project was conceived to reflect on the environment that will host the upcoming Winter Games—an extraordinary yet fragile territory currently at the center of climate and environmental transformations. De Bastiani’s work reminds us that painting remains a powerful language: capable of moving, provoking thought, and returning, with a unique force, the complexity of a landscape that deserves care, knowledge, and respect. The show aims to illuminate the spaces that will host the Olympic events, offering the audience an artistic reflection that is cultural, naturalistic, and environmental.
An educational program accompanies the exhibition, designed for ages 0 to 99: a children’s workshop where natural-recycled materials are used to sculpt a snowy mountain environment; another more experimental configuration uses spices and other natural ingredients to create natural color palettes, highlighting the pigment properties of everyday foods. Additionally, Alps’ room fragrances, expansive horizons, and the intimacy of undergrowth invite visitors into an immersive experience, with after-hours sessions for group meditation in the company of De Bastiani’s works.
Finally, one or more painting-and-didactics masterclasses are being explored, led by the artist for an expert audience, with Windsor & Newton materials.
Photo credits: The photographs come from the artist’s archive.
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