Donatella Bianchi’s work cannot easily be categorised under one particular movement or another. First and foremost, it is her way of facing the world from an artistic point of view. Works by Donatella Bianchi are usually imbued with a dreamy atmosphere, but are at the same time connected to her life. She regularly spends time staying in the remote wooded regions of rural Auvergne. The impressions that the area has made on her are all to be found in her drawings of trees and forests, which are produced in Chinese ink and pastel. Nature shows its rough and unruly side in the series entitled Harmonies secrètes (HS) and Les témoins immobiles (TI), in which we mainly see only bare trunks and branches. They seem to be looking back at us, a little in the way of anthropomorphic beings. From time to time we see an eye socket or an open mouth amid the weathered, defenceless stumps. Are we somehow standing face to face with a petrified human who has taken on the form of a tree? Donatella Bianchi’s nocturnal landscapes are bathed in an atmosphere of mystery, wonder and silence. The moon is seen, glimpsed through the branches. In some of her other works, we also see human figures emerge: sometimes they are fairly recognisable, while in others, they have already faded into white silhouettes. It’s the world of memory, dream and melancholy.

Extract from a text by Rik Hemmerijckx, Conservator E. Verhaerenmuseum