The urgency of self knowledge in the other

by Mariella Carlotti

Entering the room where Lara Leonardi paints is a bit like stepping into her life, like looking over the chasm of her Soul. Or at least it was for me, on a hot early summer afternoon.

I met Lara a few years ago when she began her relationship with Paolo and through him, with the greater presence of Christ and his Church, where she found peace from human restlessness and pain.
And we always think we know another person through things we preserve in our memory about them, some facial features, an impression about their temperament and some words we heard them utter.
Then one afternoon at last, we begin to glimpse the vastness of the other's world and the idea that we contained them in - is blown away.
You walk into that room and you are struck by the painted faces. The likenesses of Lara's: father, daughter, husband, certain friends without whom one would not be able to figure himself out.
And in each of these portraits you almost hurt yourself looking for, almost digging for that pictorial connection that gives us a glimpse at the need for depth, to know the other. Suddenly those strong colors hit you. They are almost aggressive, so at odds with the sweet personality, almost timid person that you imagined Lara to be.
You are struck by the juxtaposition of colors, white on red, with cuts that reconstructs the strong expression of the faces. You are transfixed by the stares of the eyes, which sometimes look at you as if requesting forgiveness or help, other times they are staring at something outside the scene and takes you along with them.
And so as you go home, you reflect on those faces, you reflect on yourself as you realize that you are a little like those faces that you looked at on those canvases, made of simple things - such as the materials Lara uses - but in movement towards great things.