RoadShow’s Third Stop: Cernobbio, Villa Bernasconi
Art4Women RoadShow’s Third Stop: Four Contemporary Voices in Dialogue with the Art Nouveau Heritage of Villa Bernasconi on Lake Como
Largo Campanini 2, Cernobbio (CO), Italy
Friday, 28 August 2026, 2:00 p.m.
Art4Women, an innovative start-up dedicated to fostering connections between contemporary art, businesses and local communities, continues its RoadShow: a travelling exhibition project with a strong social impact that is crossing Italy aboard an electric cargo van, bringing Art4Women’s international community of artists directly into local communities and creating opportunities for dialogue between diverse artistic practices, residents and cultural organisations.
Following its stops in Sicily and Malesco, the RoadShow arrives in Cernobbio, on Lake Como, on Friday, 28 August 2026, at 2:00 p.m. The third stop is organised in partnership with Villa Bernasconi and under the patronage of the Municipality of Cernobbio, presenting works by Mara Bonofiglio, Sveva Ambrosoli, Kimiyasu Kato and Giovanni Colombo, all members of the Art4Women artist community.
Villa Bernasconi is one of Italy’s finest examples of Art Nouveau architecture. Built in 1905–06 for silk manufacturer Davide Bernasconi, its decorative features — from wrought iron and stained glass to ornamental cement work — incorporate imagery inspired by the life cycle of the silkworm alongside the floral motifs characteristic of Art Nouveau. Today, the villa is a museum that goes beyond the traditional idea of preservation, telling, in the first person, the story of a house, a family and a community of workers. It is a place where industry, craftsmanship and beauty have always been deeply intertwined, making it an ideal setting for a project that brings contemporary art into dialogue with the spaces, histories and communities it encounters along its journey.
For its Cernobbio stop, Art4Women presents an exhibition bringing together four distinct artistic voices, unfolding from the garden into the interiors of the villa and engaging directly with the defining elements of its Art Nouveau architecture and decorative language.
The journey begins with Giovanni Colombo’s interpretation of the Lake Como landscape and Kimiyasu Kato’s iron sculptures, which echo and reinterpret the wrought-iron gates, railings and balustrades that represent some of the most distinctive decorative features of Lombard Art Nouveau. The dialogue continues through Mara Bonofiglio’s floral imagery, offering a contemporary interpretation of the stylised botanical forms associated with Art Nouveau, and Sveva Ambrosoli’s female portraiture, which brings a contemporary perspective to the female figure — one of the quintessential muses and subjects of the Art Nouveau visual language.
Together, the four artists create an exhibition that moves through the history of the villa, connects different artistic languages and periods, and invites visitors to look anew at a cultural heritage that continues to speak to the present.
Mara Bonofiglio creates works animated by a vibrant interplay of floral and natural elements, painted with vivid colours and richly textured brushstrokes that convey the energy of life.
Sveva Ambrosoli, who trained at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, has developed her artistic research around female portraiture, presenting the feminine not simply as a decorative icon, but as an active subject and voice.
Kimiyasu Kato works with spring steel to create extraordinarily slender, almost weightless sculptures that appear to vibrate with the slightest movement of air. His practice transforms iron into something light and alive, creating a counterpoint to the metalwork embedded in the architecture and decoration of the villa.
Through his painting, Giovanni Colombo interprets the Lake Como landscape through a progressive process of reduction: almost geometric lines and flat fields of colour heighten chromatic contrasts in a search for the ancestral essence of these places, beyond the traces left by human time.
The Art4Women RoadShow will continue through 2027, with stops planned across a number of Italian cities and territories, including Brescia, Florence, Turin and Genoa. At each destination, Art4Women will work alongside local stakeholders and institutions to build connections between contemporary artistic research and the distinctive cultural identity of each host community.
Information
Art4Women – RoadShow | Third Stop
In partnership with Villa Bernasconi and under the patronage of the Municipality of Cernobbio
Largo Campanini 2, Cernobbio (CO), Italy
Friday, 28 August 2026, 2:00 p.m.
Featured artists: Mara Bonofiglio, Sveva Ambrosoli, Kimiyasu Kato, Giovanni Colombo
Press & Contact Information
Art4Women Srl
Via Durando 38, Milan, Italy
+39 02 91157714
www.art4women.com
info@art4women.com