On July 28th, Lalettura’s Corriere Art Collection presents a cover that captures the essence of harmony between visual art and melody — "Cartografia dell’Inconscio Alta" by Antonella Benanzato.
For years, Padua-born artist Antonella Benanzato has been bringing together sound, painting, neuroscience, and meditation, infusing this collectable edition with an exclusive multimedia component: an intimate video showcases Benanzato at work, accompanied by an original musical piece that resonates with her visual creations. In this way, the cover acts as a bridge to reflect on the expressive power of music, echoing the words of Aldous Huxley, "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
The physical issue will be available at newsstands nationwide beginning Sunday, July 28th. Following closely, the edition including the collectible digital version of the cover — complete with a digital certificate of authenticity upon redemption — will be released on Tuesday, July 30th.
Antonella Benanzato: Synesthesia of the Senses
Antonella Benanzato, an abstract painter, musician, and journalist based in Padua, introduces her newest creation, "Cartografia dell’Inconscio Alta," a multimedia cover for Lalettura that combines and synthesizes visual art with musical harmony.
Benanzato's dedication to blending sound and color has defined her artistic journey throughout the years, infusing traditional media with a vibrant, multisensory dynamic. Launching "Creactivity 2016" at Padua's Fusion Art Center, Benanzato captivated audiences by integrating live musical performances with her visual exhibitions, resulting in an interactive and immersive art experience — an approach that continued to evolve, notably at Enoitalia's 30th anniversary in Verona with an immersive video installation and a musical performance at the Grotte di Pradis in Pordenone, where she used the cave walls as canvases for her video projections, melding natural elements with technological artistry.
Her 2019 exhibitions, "Cromogonie – Ritratto del Paesaggio interiore" and "Alter Mundus," further showcased her unique ability to turn art galleries into resonant spaces where visual and auditory elements coalesce. Each work not only seen but heard, creating an enveloping atmosphere where the art's thematic music, composed by Benanzato herself, loops continuously, complementing the visual narrative.
Benanzato's pursuits extend beyond the canvas. She co-founded the Cantiere delle Donne, a think tank that advocates for women's empowerment and fosters a culture of gentle revolution. Her collaborative work, "La Scelta gentile," shares the inspirational story of this group's journey toward enhancing female voices in society. In 2020, she expanded her "Creativity" project to include personal and spiritual development through the exploration of sound meditation and the discovery of individual harmonic codes.
Benanzato's artistic philosophy is rooted in the intrinsic connection between color and sound. She believes that color acts as a magnet, attracting specific emotional and sensory vibrations that align the mind and body to particular frequencies. Her paintings become conduits through which musical notes and hues transcend the surface, offering a glimpse into an intricate microcosm that parallels molecular structures and, potentially, our spiritual DNA.
“My research moves in parallel between painting, music, and non-ordinary states of consciousness. For me, and this has always been the case, color and music are one, a unity that prefigures a kind of innate synesthesia. Every image, every color for me has a sound, represents a musical composition, has a tone.
And so it is with people, inanimate objects, situations, and circumstances, as well as events that are part of the most immediate everyday life. Like the rain, or the wind, and the rustling of the leaves. Everything resonates, in my vision.
The synesthetic process has been widely studied and is highly personal. Each artist who has embarked on this path had their own personal chromatic and musical scale. Experience, in fact, as neuroscience explains very well, deeply influences chromatic reference and, consequently, musical tonality.” — Antonella Benanzato
This synesthetic approach is deeply personal yet universally resonant, shaped by a neuroscience-backed understanding of how life experiences influence our sensory perceptions. Through "Cartografia dell’Inconscio Alta," Benanzato invites us into her perceptual world, where everyday phenomena—be it the whisper of wind or the pattern of rain—carry distinct auditory qualities, thus enriching our sensory experiences and deepening our engagement with the world around us.
The Color of Sound: Cartografia dell’Inconscio Alta
In her latest cover for Lalettura, "Cartografia dell’Inconscio Alta," Antonella Benanzato symbiotically intertwines the realms of auditory and visual arts, inviting us to experience her artwork not just with our eyes but with our ears as well. This synesthetic blend sets the stage for Gianluigi Colin’s reflections, providing a rich, multisensory context that deepens our understanding of the artwork.
“The artwork on our cover inhabits the space between two worlds: painting and music. For Antonella Benanzato (born in Padua, 1968), an eclectic personality (painter, musician, composer, journalist), musical frequencies are an essential and poetic form of expression, capable of transforming sound into substance, into dense layers of colors. The foundations of her research are linked to music, light, and movement. Her paintings, where harmonies (created by the artist herself) manifest in shapes, marks, and color schemes, form an informal pictorial landscape with interludes. For years, Antonella Benanzato has been engaged in exploring the relationship between sound and painting, a journey that has also delved into neuroscience and meditative states. The cover also has a multimedia dimension: the collectable edition of the artwork is enhanced (for those who purchase the specific issue equipped with a QR Code) with a video showing the artist at work in her studio, and a unique, exclusive musical piece. Antonella Benanzato is a cultured artist, adept at mastering various forms of artistic expression and blending them with sensitivity. The same sensitivity that led the writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley, author of “The Art of Seeing,” to say: “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”__Gianluigi Colin, Art Director at Corriere della Sera