Arianna Caroli lives and works in New York City.
She was born in Orvieto, Italy, and earned a Doctorate in Ancient Literature and Archaeology at the University of Rome.
She painted in Rome under Maestro Fortunato del Tavano, and completed her studies at Sotheby's in London, The New York Studio School, The Art Students League of New York, and with Vladislav Andrejev, Master Iconographer.
She has had extensive experience as designer, set decorator, and artistic director for such individuals and organizations as James Ivory, Vittorio and Paolo Taviani, Bob Giraldi, J. Walter Thompson, Buitoni-Perugina, Etro, Giorgio Mondadori and Coin.
In 1994 Arianna was commissioned by Gene Moore to create five paintings for the prestigious TIFFANY'S windows in 5th Avenue, New York.
Her painting and drawings are in private collections in the United States, South America, Japan and Europe.
From May to July 1998, ALITALIA will show her works at the J.F.K. International Airport, New York. Title of the show: ALITALIA per l'arte: Arianna Caroli
Arianna is also working in a book project about her art.

1997 Flower Power, Buschlen-Mowatt Gallery, Vancouver, Canada and Singapore
1997 The Cigar, Murakami Gallery, New York City
1997 Angels, The South Secretary Lobby at the United Nations, New York City
1997 The Spirit of the Angels, Ibe Art Gallery of the Colombian Consulate, New York City
1997 Arianna Caroli: Archetypes, Ile Alexander S. Onassis Center, New York City
1996 Arianna Caroli: Celebration, Murakami Gallery, New York City
1996 Kouroi & Korai, Kouros Gallery, New York City
1996 Angels, Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown, Massachussets
1996 Let there be light, Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, New York
1996 International Show, Cork Gallery Lincoln Center, New York City
1998-94 Hrefha Jonsdottir Gallery, Lambertville, New Jersey
1996,1994 Arianna Caroli: Fivepaintings for five windows, TIFFANY & Co., New York City

Arianna Caroli - phoenix on fire
The art of Arianna Caroli defies description because it appears to gather together the conceptual energies of the highest painterly expression with explosive experience and then to fly with all this glamor out to another cosmos, sending back flashes of vision, cryptic experience from a universe beyond our cloud-bound horizon.
But, to place myself firmly on terra ferma, it is her securely trained painterly technique together with her grand experience of the Italian gesture that inforrns her work with theatrical persuasiveness. It is the noble theatre of classical myth, the compelling presence of the Christian tragedy with the philosophical hope of entry into THE GATES OF HEAVEN, the title of one of her most exalted efforts, that transforms an exuberant personal faith into heroic art.
In an era when aesthetic disintegration is the fashion and material and spiritual collapse the way of life, it is fascinating to discover a spirit rising strongly, vibrantly from such ashes like a Phoenix reborn.
Text by by Paul Sorel, 1994

Let There Be Light...
Upon entering a room filled with Arianna Caroli's paintings, one is dazzled by a splendor of light, color and movement - these elements change the works, imbuing them with a visual dynamism and immediacy while lifting them to a glorious, mystical sphere.
Rich in detail, Ms. Caroli's classical and mythological subjects are rendered with the precision of da Vinci, the drama of Caravaggio. It is her experiential use of color and light, however, and the exultance of her brushstrokes (which might angle off into ther heavens, giving a rose eternal life, or a whirt ecstatically with a group of dancing dervishes), which creates a poignant blending of literature and art, of ancient lore with modern sensibility, of the ethereal with the temporal. Thus a meticulously etched Falconer (Antinous) , seemingly rises off the plate, gaining stature when printed in deep blue and pink; a winged- angel becomes at once intimate and sublimely fluid in robes scintillating with golden yellow. Stand before the series of whirling dervishes - a trill will rise in your throat and your soul will resound as the ecstasy of these enraptured figures is made visible by sweeping and twirling white strokes.
Arianna Caroli is able to capture and portray the fleeting moments of epiphany, of illumination - her work is magnificent to behold.
Text by Ivy B. Sherman, April 22, 1996 in New York City

The art of Arianna Carofi
is inspired by classical history or myth interwoven with personal devotions. Weaving makes apt metaphor: Arianna Caroli conceives these archetypes - these figures tied to primal truths - to be interlinked in various subtle ways. There is a cyclic exposition of luminous motifs which connect and irradiate them. It is a sort of illuminated labyrinth. Guided by the thread of Ariadne - namesake for the artist - we see relations of images limpid or occult, apparitions inherited or invented, studied or dreamed, chronicled or fabulous. In it all, a construct of devotion is revealed. The subtle links among the archetypes unfold like a symphonic or novelistic structure.

Arianna loves the sumptuous profound. It is the mystery, her particular, present and reverent domain. Strange, exotic, ungovernable forces seem always to emerge from the unknown East to challenge Western culture. From beyond antiquity, divinities and cults continually have come from those frontiers on which the occident impinged in its travels, conquests, or discoveries, while the Mediterranean world became the channel of new mystic beliefs.

Arianna Caroli looks at this world of belief, and energy, and creates paintings, icons, and images from the tradition we associate with Byzantine art, or Orthodox Christianity. Arianna conceives this work as a discipline: as a point of departure, and of contact to further mysteries. For her, classically trained in the discipline of icon "writing", this is one of the paths to truth. Fifteen canonic steps lead you from darkness and chaos to order and light, as in the alchemical progress from nigredo to albedo. One invests each step in the process with meditation, application, and devotion. She brings that devotion to painting, to etching, to drawing, to arts in all their ways, and for us in all of ours.

"What you see in the final steps of the art work is not as important as what you do not see," says Arianna. The meaning is in the journey, in the QUEST. In Arianna's paintings, icons, and "pretended" icons, we find unconventional figures of contact with eternity, eminences from the classical world of myth, and even images from a private and inventive mythic symbology. So there are images who recall the arcana of tarots, or of cults inchoate to the present muse of history. There are devotions that bring contact to realms as various as the Sufi mysticism of the whirling Dervishes and the still assurances of Buddhism, as well as the saints or angels sacred in the traditions familiar and orthodox for us.

For Arianna, there is nothing amiss or alien about this. She sees the same truths of the divine wherever she goes and devoutly questions as well as seeks for answers. "I try to paint the ecstatic prayer of the whirling Dervishes," she says. "Maybe a Prayer can become a Painting and a painting become a prayer. Maybe a painting can heal. Maybe colors can bring peace to the soul and give light to the moment." These goals share much, or all, with the devotional intent of traditional icons, which induce a rapture or ecstasy upon the eternal, as they open a channel to THE LIGHT.

Text by Andrew McDonnell on the exhibition "Archetypes" at The Alexander S. Onassis Center, New York City, February - April 1997.


Arianna Carofi artist/painter
Once I traveled the world, now I travel within and beyond, trying to Paint what the eyes cannot see.

I look for the light of Orion's stars, queens of the night, the eyes of Eridanus, the rwgic of Sagittarius, the mystery of Centaurus - as he fights with the Lupus or perhaps initiates a ritual?

I seek to unveil the faces of the Angels, to see the color of air around them - Gabriel emerging from whirl of wind and light, Ariel, ethereal King of the Waters, Michael's peacock-feathered wings, and Raphael, the healer, protecting the sunset.

I see faces, heads from the past, perhaps from the future: "Family Portraits"...the ambiguous Sibyl, Ulysses dragged back to the sea by his unremitting struggle to know, the Profile of the Sphinx reflecting the fires of the desert.

I question.
What color is the sound of Pan's flute?
What light lies beyond the "Gate to Heaven"?
What shade of green is the water in which Oeagrus lies with his Muse?

I try to paint the ecstatic prayer of the whirling Dervishes. I pray myself.
Maybe a prayer can become a painting and a painting become a prayer.
Maybe a painting can heal.
Maybe colors can bring peace to the soul and give light to the moment.

And I dream. Drearns grabbed and painted before waking.
A head lights up in the sky, rushes toward me like a meteor to say:
"Remember you are an artist"

Occasione@tol.it