My name is Irene De Salve. I was born in Milan in a rainy autumn day. It was October, the 16th in the 1979.

My roots belong to the south of Italy; Sicily has had a decisive impact on my way of being, on my way to approach colors of which the territory is full and rich and it has defined my unconditional love for the Mediterranean sea and for the water.

In my growth I have always followed a “creative and listening” model, as an eternal student and lover of the visual arts, convinced that I can test and celebrate myself by learning from every place, from every person that I meet in my path, from every circumstance, trying to grasp the meaning in the details and the nuances in the colors.

I owe my first approach to painting to Mr. Barone, an artist, who was the first, when I still was a child, to give me a canvas with tempera. He used to stay in front of the sea to paint and I admired his art on canvas and on shells and I dreamed one day to resemble himin the talent.

My two passions have in common a unique denominator: the Silence.

Swimming: I am swimmer and I compete (with myself) in open water: seas and lakes .. Staying in the water is my dimension, a form of welcome, a sort of meditation in motion. Swimming taught me values such as resilience, the determination to achieve goals to evolve, theself-discipline, the management of unpredictable events .. changing shape, just like water does.

Painting: these are my moments of creative meditation; it’s like an interior trip among colors and words.  Always enchanted by the visual arts, I tried to represent deep moods on a canvas that could create a contrast with the “surface” and that would allow the glazes to slide and to adapt: the aluminum.

The peculiarity is that all the paintings are painted by night when the city use to sleep and the time seems to expand.

I started my career as an artist with the serie “Bodies” :

“Lines that become bodies with elements dedicated to the Nature that blend together with harmony and sensuality .. a tribute to the most elegant of Nature’s creations: the Woman.

The aluminum as background reflects and escapes, creating a metaphorical detachment from all that is bigoted. The intertwining of the lines is fascinating and hides a meticulous care of the imagined figures . “

After years of this style, commissioned by a close girl friend, I decided to try with abstract subjects where the colors were not contained in any contour .. which also represents a little bit the metaphor of changing in my life in recent years.

The intention was to paint a symbol that represented history, projected in a context of modernity and speed.

Thus was born the serie entitled “Milano”, which immediately met with some success.

“The Cathedral of Milan, recognized as historical symbol in Italy and across the world, takes on different intense reflections on a metallic canvas. Often associated with a leaden sky, typical of Milan, a city that’s been native and adoptive for me, it remains motionless with patience in its splendor and majesty, facing the pressing and chaotic rhythms of modern society.

The choice of using strong colors to represent the facade of the Cathedral, emphasizes the contrast between what remains and what flows quickly “.

Some of my paintings, as well as in private collections were on display in Milan BRERA, during the Art Week last September 2021, also in some hotelsand art shops;then I took part at ART3F (International contemporary Art Fair) Bruxelles 2021; FIABCN 2021 (Fiera Internacional d’Art de Barcelona) in Barcellona;  Luxembourg Art Price 2021, then in Amsterdam at A.D.A.F. 2020 (Annual Dutch Art Fair) allowing me the first approach to selling, despite my emotional attachment to each of them.