Sogni d’Oriente, the ongoing series presented by PUNTO SULL’ARTE, arrives in Switzerland with a cross-disciplinary project that brings together five contemporary artists: Annalù, Jernej Forbici, Lara Martinato, Kyoji Nagatani, and Alice Zanin. The exhibition pairs painting and sculpture in a journey that intertwines dream, symbol, and spirituality, drawing on the East not as a mere geographic reference but as an interior, contemplative dimension.
Annalù (born 1976 in San Donà di Piave) is an internationally renowned Italian artist who lives and works between Jesolo and Dubai. A Venezia Academy of Fine Arts graduate (1999), she has participated in major international events, including the Venice Biennale (2001, 2011). Her research explores metamorphic forms and imaginary architectures, characterized by a strong lyricism. Her sculptures, made from fiberglass, paper, and glass, are three-dimensional works that evoke fluidity and transformation, focusing on the passage between different states of matter in a dynamic equilibrium between nature and artificium. Her works have been shown in Italy and abroad, including the United States, Dubai, China, Hong Kong, France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Russia. In 2009 she was selected for a show at Vienna’s Moya Museum. Her works are in collections such as MACS (Catania) and MIM (Piacenza). In 2020 a sculpture was acquired by the VAF Foundation. In 2024 she collaborated with Reflex for the Milan Design Week.
Jernej Forbici (Maribor, Slovenia, 1980) is a visual artist living between Kidričevo, Ptuj, and Vicenza. He studied Painting at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts and specialized in Visual Arts and Performing Disciplines. His practice centers on landscape and large-format works, addressing the realities of his industrialized homeland and a critical view of environmental pollution and humanity’s role. Since 1999 he has exhibited widely in Europe, Canada, the United States, Argentina, and China, and has participated in major international biennials including Hicetnunc (Pordenone, 2003), IBCA (Prague, 2005), and the Venice Biennales (51st and 53rd, 2007, 2011). In 2012 he received a Slovenian Ministry of Culture fellowship enabling a London residency. In 2019 he debuted in New York with the solo show “Long Gone.” Since 2005 he has served as Artistic Director of ART STAYS, Ptuj’s international contemporary art festival. His works are held in public and private international collections.
Lara Martinato (Busto Arsizio, 1967) trained at an art high school and studied archaeology and conservation at Palazzo Spinelli in Florence. She earned a degree in Paris (1991) at Université Catholique de Paris, studying master techniques in major museums. Since 1995 she has lived in Rome, working as a theater and film set painter, restorer, cultural heritage consultant, and interior decorator. After a period in London, she returned to Italy to develop a conceptual-art practice focused on contemporary society. Her analog, evocative painting centers on the samurai as a symbol of strength, discipline, and spiritual tension, often highlighted by gold. Her subjects are instruments for exploring symbolic identities, inner anxieties, and universal archetypes. Technically, she emphasizes disciplined composition and uses materials such as plaster, tempera, and oil. Since 2003 she has regularly exhibited in solo and group shows; her works are in public and private collections in Italy and abroad.
Born in Tokyo in 1950, Nagatani studied at Tokyo University of the Arts and at the Institute for Advanced Study of the University of the Arts, specializing in bronze casting in 1976. His relationship with Italy began in 1978 when he moved to Milan to attend the Brera Academy. His works quickly gained international recognition and entered major private collections. In 2000, for the Jubilee, he created the Coffin for the Keys of the Holy Door of the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome. His work expresses sensual, monumental compositions that fuse dream, poetry, and aesthetic reflection, using symbolic themes such as Wind, Time, Column, Door, Chair, Earth, and Silence. Split between Italy and Japan, he has created numerous monumental works, including a monument for the Hachioji Municipal Theater, the Chair of the Wind for the Open Air Museum of Utsukushigahara, the Door of the Wind for the Hakone Outdoor Museum, and three monuments for Yoshikawa City’s public gardens.
Alice Zanin was born in Piacenza in 1987. An autodidact, she explored several expressive languages before focusing, since 2012, almost exclusively on paper-mâché (cartapesta), a material that gives her broad creative freedom. Using this technique she creates refined, surreal sculptures, often populated by light, suspended animals with stylized bodies that tend toward the erasure of identity. She has participated in numerous solo and group shows and national fairs. Notable solo exhibitions include Animali Incartati at the Triennale di Milano (2017), The Great Hippocampus Question at Palazzo della Permanente, Milan (2016), and Uccellacci&Uccellini. Da Darwin a Pasolini at Palazzo della Regione, Bologna (2018). She has been a finalist for international prizes such as Arteam Cup and Combat Prize and has repeatedly participated in Art Stays in Ptuj. In 2025 she exhibited at Palazzo Citterio in Milan. Her works are in private collections in Italy and abroad.
The works will be on view at the refined Art Gallery Arté Restaurant in Lugano, a stylish space overlooking the lake and part of the prestigious five-star Villa Castagnola Hotel. For years, Art Gallery Arté Restaurant has offered a unique fusion of contemporary art and haute cuisine, providing visitors with a complete sensory experience. This year, the works by the featured artists have been selected to remain on display through November 2026. The Sogni d’Oriente artists explore dream, symbol, and spirituality, discovering in the East an interior dimension of balance, contemplation, and transformation.
Annalù investigates metamorphosis and impermanence through sculptures crafted from fiberglass, paper, and glass. Her fluid, suspended forms recall Zen philosophy and the ongoing becoming of life. Recurring symbols include ginkgo leaves, emblematic of longevity, rebirth, and wisdom, which become metaphors for a resilient, luminous spirituality.
Jernej Forbici’s painting focuses on the landscape as a place of memory and inner reflection. His layered, quiet vistas invite a slow, meditative gaze, evoking an Eastern sensitivity where nature is not mere backdrop but a living presence and a mirror of the spirit. In Lara Martinato’s paintings, the figure of the samurai emerges as an archetype of discipline, balance, and awareness. Precious surfaces, enriched with gold and pigments, transform the warrior into a suspended presence, symbolizing a spiritual path that fuses rigor with contemplation.
Kyoji Nagatani, a Japanese sculptor, presents bronze works with essential, ascending forms. His sculptures express birth, growth, and elevation, embodying the principles of Nipponese aesthetics—harmony, restraint, and a dialogue between emptiness and fullness. Finally, Alice Zanin creates light, papercraft creatures—an ancient Chinese material—suspended between reality and dream. Her animals appear as poetic, silent presences, evocations of a natural world observed with an inner, contemplative gaze.
Photo credits: The owner is the gallery.
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