Award-winning Italian artist Roberta Coni is known for her striking figurative paintings, predominantly of women, whose deeply soulful, powerfully expressive faces emerge from shadowy backdrops and dominate her large-scale canvases with dramatic intensity.

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Combining both exceptional classical detail and heavier-handed, expressive brushwork, Coni creates artworks that are visually intoxicating. Eyes and lips are painted with mesmerising realism, while other features are often distorted or ambiguous. We become lost in a gaze, transfixed by the depth of emotion within. Coni interplays flesh and earth tones with jewel-bright turbans and other moments of vivid vibrancy – a ruby red, patterned headdress, or a pair of ocean-green eyes. Texture and density are achieved in the work through the mixing of oil paint with a thick paste of bitumen, glue and melted wax.

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Coni graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 1999 and won grants to study abroad in Spain and the USA. She is represented worldwide - in the UK, France, Germany, Turkey, China and Brazil, as well as her homeland, Italy.

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