Acappella Neapel

In her pictorial practice, Valentina Artone explores hybrid forms that inhabit an undefined, in-between reality. The works presented here mark the rich evolution of her ongoing series Sortilegi (2023–). The series first emerged from an imaginary rooted in the ancient Latin text The Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass by Apuleius, and it continues to draw inspiration from multiple literary genres.

These surreal visions grow out of the dialogue between the artist's sensibility and the inputs generated through numerical and artificial generative languages. This exchange places at its center the machine’s short-circuit: the tension between the prompts provided by the artist and the outcome produced through the processing of a vast dataset. The choice of subjects gravitates toward grotesque and artful forms, which are reinterpreted and absorbed into the painterly practice. Valentina also looks to archaeology, extracting details drawn from its visual vocabulary and reassembling them into a personal reliquary of keepsakes and ancient fragments—whose nature, however, remains fictitious.

Valentina Artone (b. 1999) is an Italian artist with a BA from Venice Academy of Fine Arts (2023) and an MFA from Brussel’s ENSAV La Cambre (2025). Recent exhibitions have been held at Espace Vanderborght Brussels, Artissima Turin, Acappella Naples. Her work explores hybrid forms, inspired by literature, archaeology, and visual culture, as well as generative digital processes, through paintings made with oils and found wooden objects.