Cinque Giorni di Luce Ferma

“Five Days of Still Light”: Portraits of Light and Stillness in Monopoli’s Hidden Chapel

This August, the intimate Chiesetta di San Giovanni in Monopoli becomes home to a quietly powerful new exhibition: "Five Days of Still Light", a series of four evocative portrait paintings by Prague-based artist and filmmaker, Antonio Iandolo. Nestled in a small stone chapel off a lively piazza, the show offers a moment of stillness amid the summer buzz of one of Puglia’s most beloved coastal towns.
The artist, originally from Italy, draws on a rich background in cinema, bringing a deep attention to light, gesture, and mood to his work in oil. The portraits on view—two imagined, two based on real sitters—are suffused with a sense of inner life.
"Each work is about light, silence, and the invisible harmony behind things. It’s less about likeness, and more about presence," the artist shares.
Influenced by painters like Piero della Francesca and Giorgio Morandi among others, the artist’s palette is soft and melancholic, his compositions stripped back to essential forms. Each figure seems suspended in time—neither here nor there—evoking the timelessness of early Renaissance painting filtered through a deeply personal, contemporary lens.
The show takes place in a beautiful chapel located in L.go San Giovanni, just a short stroll from Monopoli’s old port. Known among locals as a beloved aperitivo spot (sometimes with drinks spilled across the church steps), the chapel now transforms into a meditative space for quiet contemplation.
"Five Days of Still Light" will be on view 27-31 July 2025, from 10-23 daily. Entry is free and visitors are invited to scan the on-site QR code for more information about the artist and the curatorial project.
For those seeking a break from the heat and noise, this tiny chapel offers not just shade—but stillness, softness, and something that might just stay with you.

Links: Undo drawings & co.
https://undo.ink/

A cura di: Ksenia Kazintseva
https://essentialaspects.co.uk/