As far as painting is concerned I am like one of those football supporters who never misses a match, remembers all the statistics and dates, knows all there is to know about the best players, but couldn't kick a ball if he had to. I can't even draw the simplest outline of a palm tree on a beach, but I adore painting and going to exhibitions; I love the great artists and envy with all my heart that joy of painting that they are able to express, that sense of bliss that sometimes almost leaps out from the painted image.
It was the joy and happines inherent in Carla's works that impressed me most the first time I saw them and it is what has kept me a faithful fan and, in a small way, a collector ever since.
It is a quality that has little to do with technique in the strictest sense of the word; obviously Carla makes use of technique and relies upon, so to speak, her compositional skills and her chromatic sensibility, but it's more than that. I believe it to be a talent drawn up from the depths of one's personality, from that interior space that has been called by different names over the centuries but that is today commonly known as the subconscience.
All that is deposited there, in that hidden place where our experiences slowly mature, forms a rich and vital mixture, almost a "humus" from which we are nourished without even realizing it. It is a special gift of artists to be able to elaborate it and make it accessible to the rest of us, like the beginning of a dialogue that is expressed through their endeavors. When this happens the work of art, whatever it may be - poetry, painting, sculpture, or music - speaks directly to the subconscience of the viewer or the listener, and creates a miraculous bridge of comprehension beyond words. I "know" that Carla is a good artist because the experts say so, but I "feel" it myself when she manages to communicate something more to me through her paintings. And I'm sure that she feels it too. I believe that it is in this ability that the happiness of the artist lies.
Carla is often inspired by Lake Maggiore, especially in her watercolour paintings. I have fre¬quented this Lake all my life; I have learnt to recognize its changing lights, its clear silky expanses, its luminous moments as well as its opaque days when the memory of summer just barely lingers in the air. Over time my acquaintance with the Lake has become an attachment and a necessity: I miss it when I have to be away for any length of time. I miss its pearly skies, the well-defined profiles of Pedum, Zeda, and the far off peaks of Switzerland; I miss the wide spaces that surround the boat or the ferry when halfway across the Lake.
And it's always a joy to see it again, even for the hundreth time. It is at moments like these that I wish I could paint so that I could express what I feel; but as I've said before, I don't even know how to hold a pencil, let alone a paintbrush. But I discover those feelings transformed into pure emotion in Carla's watercolours. Is it so absurd to feel an affectionate gratitude for one who does this for me? I remain fascinated before the transformation of the white surface of the paper into snow or distant light; in front of the miracle (frequent as it may be, but nonetheless still a miracle; and every time it happens is just as exciting as the first time) of an art that transforms colours from a tube into a reality that is more real than reality itself.
Like that enchanted corner of a rather untidy garden, immediately recognizable by those of us who know these shores and who have seen countless gardens similar to it: an extraordinarycorner dense with vegetation but where every plant, every colour, every mass reaching towards the angled wall is individualized and almost botanically identifiable; one can almost feel the heat and smell the heavy scents of summer. Or the other corner, where everything is sun-kissed and a deck-chair next to the balustrade awaits its occupant who has just arisen, or who is just about to sit down; the mandarine orange bursting with colour, and behind it, a glimpse of water, the shadows filled with afternoon light.
In a more recent exhibition, along with her landscapes and floral paintings, Carla surprised us with some splendid portraits, an unusual exploit for an artist using the difficult technique of watercolour which allows for no second thoughts, changes or re-touching. The results are marvelous: in these children's faces filled with wonder, in their cries and looks of astonishment the immediacy of her touch has captured the immediacy of their expressions. And there is something else: notice the young girl in the evening dress of azure gussets - in it Carla has reached the limits of abstraction.
A new impetuousness has also emerged following Carlo's recent trip to the island of Santorini. She has added new colours, vivid, brighter, perhaps simply (simply?) Greek, to her palette. The white of the paper has become whiter than ever, assaulted by the greens and blues of the Mediterranean, by the dried up forms of the prickly pears, and by the explosion of pinks and reds. Where did that stray cat who has crept onto the page come from? I would have liked to have been with Carla on Santorini as she sketched that day, to see for myself if he disappeared into thin air immediately afterwards; in any case, it seems that all cats, expecially stray Greek ones, have the ability to vanish as soon as they have rounded the corner, only to be caught by the artist's brush.

Maria Pia Rosignoli