A recent and formative source of inspiration is Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. The influence lies not only in the book’s imagined journey through fifty-five cities, but in the Oulipian constraints Calvino used to structure and arrange the novel - systems that generate variation, connection, and rhythm. This series follows my own passage through these cities, with each painting developed within a fixed set of constraints around palette and layout. Each city contains traces of others, forming networks and suggesting a shared urban logic: the idea that every city reflects a single place. To emphasize the ethereal and temporary nature of such a journey, I titled the series Lalage, a city mentioned only in passing.

Diomira | Memory 1.1 | What remains after arrival

Isidora | Memory 2.1 | The city remembered from elsewhere

Dorothea | Desire 1.1 | Two ways of seeing the same city

Zaira | Memory 3.1 | Streets made of time

Anastasia | Desire 2.1 | Desire fulfilled, desire renewed

Tamara | Signs 1.1 | The city of signs for signs

Zora | Memory 4.1 | Memorized until forgotten

Despina | Desire 3.1 | Seen from land, seen from sea

Zirma | Signs 2.1 | What the eye keeps finding

Isaura | Thin 1.1 | What sustains us unseen

Maurilia | Memory 5.2 | The postcard and the city

Fedora | Desire 4.2 | What the city might have been

Zoe | Signs 3.2 | Where everything could be something else

Zenobia | Thin 2.2 | The city that chose its height

Euphemia | Trading 1.2 | Stories traded at night

Zobeide | Desire 5.3 | The pursuit that makes the city

Hypatia | Signs 4.3 | The library and the world

Armilla | Thin 3.3 | What remains when the city leaves

Chloe | Trading 2.3 | Possible encounters

Valdrada | Eyes 1.3 | The city and its double

Olivia | Signs 5.4 | The city admired from afar

Sophronia | Thin 4.4 | The carnival stays, the city moves on

Eutropia | Trading 3.4 | Always the next city

Zemrude | Eyes 2.4 | What you see depends on how you look

Aglaura | Names 1.4 | The city described

Octavia | Thin 5.5 | Held together by trust

Ersilia | Trading 4.5 | Relations left behind

Baucis | Eyes 3.5 | A city that doesn't touch

Leandra | Names 2.5 | Voices in the walls

Melania | The Dead 1.5 | The performance that outlasts its audience

Esmeralda | Trading 5.6 | Many ways through

Phyllis | Eyes 4.6 | What walking leaves behind

Adelma | The Dead 2.6 | Those we recognize

Eudoxia | The Sky 1.6 | The rug beneath the city

Moriana | Eyes 5.7 | What the facade conceals

Clarice | Names 4.7 | Fragments learning to persist

Eusapia | The Dead 3.7 | Life below the surface

Beersheba | The Sky 2.7 | Heaven above, refuse below

Leonia | Continuous 1.7 | Yesterday beneath today

Argia | The Dead 4.8 | Buried under itself

Thekla | The Sky 3.8 | Building toward a moving sky

Trude | Continuous 2.8 | Everything the same

Olinda | Hidden 1.8 | The city that contains all its former selves

Laudomia | The Dead 5.9 | Lives lived elsewhere

Perinthia | The Sky 4.9 | Built to mirror the stars, which were already wrong

Procopia | Continuous 3.9 | Overcrowded even in absence

Raissa | Hidden 2.9 | Happiness persists

Andria | The Sky 5.9 | What the city changes in the sky

Cecilia | Continuous 4.9 | What the city replaces

Marozia | Hidden 3.9 | The city that becomes its other self

Penthesilea | Continuous 5.9 | The city without a center

Theodora | Hidden 4.9 | What was expelled came back

Berenice | Hidden 5.9 | Justice and injustice, bound

55 cities, 11 themes, 9 chapters