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 | What the traveler expected

Zaira | Memory 3.1 | Streets made of time

Anastasia | Desire 2.1 | What draws us in

Tamara | Signs 1.1 | Nothing what it seems

Zora | Memory 4.1 | A place that cannot change

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

Isaura | Thin 1.1 | What sustains us unseen

Maurilia | Memory 5.2 | Before and after

Fedora | Desire 4.2 | All cities imagined

Zoe | Signs 3.2 | Where everything could be something else

Zenobia | Thin 2.2 | Raised by necessity

Euphemia | Trading 1.2 | Stories traded at night

Zobeide | Desire 5.3 | The pursuit that makes the city

Armilla | Thin 3.3 | The city without walls

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 | Permanent and temporary

Eutropia | Trading 3.4 | The city that moves

Zemrude | Eyes 2.4 | The city shaped by glance

Aglaura | Names 1.4 | The story told about a place

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 city that never finishes speaking

Esmeralda | Trading 5.6 | Many ways through

Phyllis | Eyes 4.6 | Remebered by walking

Adelma | The Dead 2.6 | Those we recognize

Eudoxia | The Sky 1.6 | The rug beneath the city

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 | Always under construction

Trude | Continuous 2.8 | Everything the same

Olinda | Hidden 1.8 | Growth without awareness

Laudomia | The Dead 5.9 | Lives lived elsewhere

Perinthia | The Sky 4.9 | Built according to the stars

Procopia | Continuous 3.9 | Overcrowded even in absence

Raissa | Hidden 2.9 | Happiness persists

Andria | The Sky 5.9 | Aligned with the cosmos

Cecilia | Continuous 4.9 | What the city replaces

Marozia | Hidden 3.9 | The city that devours itself

Penthesilea | Continuous 5.9 | Always arriving

Theodora | Hidden 4.9 | The city after animals

Berenice | Hidden 5.9 | Justice concealed within injustice

55 cities, 11 themes, 9 chapters