In the space suspended between thought and its manifestation, ‘Printed Dreams’ take shape not as reflections of reality, but as architectures of the invisible.
This is a study that explores the very nature of perception: what remains of us when the world fragments and light decides to break down into new emotional alphabets?
The figures that populate this series are not static portraits, but presences in the making. They seem to emerge from an oceanic density or dissolve into a chromatic explosion, suggesting that human identity is, at its core, a fluid substance, never the same as itself. Each image is a breached boundary, where the face ceases to be an anatomical perimeter and becomes a geography of feeling.
In these works, colour does not merely clothe the form, but generates it.
Deep blues and acid greens evoke the silence of an inner immersion, that moment of breath-holding when the dream is still pure and undisturbed.
Pulsating reds and electric magentas pierce the darkness like synaptic discharges, reminding us of the violence and beauty of passion bursting into consciousness.
In an age that pursues absolute clarity and superficial definition, this series celebrates the complexity of the veiled. Visual layering becomes a metaphor for psychological layering: we are made up of overlaps, of intertwining memories, and of clashing desires.
These dreams are not ethereal projections, but visions with the consistency of crystal and the strength of mineral. They are tactile imprints of the spirit, moments captured at the exact instant when the abstract becomes flesh and feeling becomes image.
About Francesco Mercadante
Francesco Mercadante: The Alchemist of Liquid Light. Born in 1968 in Cutro, Calabria, and now living in Reggio Emilia, Francesco Mercadante is an artist who skilfully blends the precision of restoration and the sensitivity of an interior designer with a deeply painterly photographic vision. His passion began at the age of nine, amidst the golden landscapes of the Calabrian wheat fields, when his father gave him a Kodak Instamatic and a blue bicycle, tools of freedom that led him to seek out “scenes to capture” and to discover a nature that calls and inspires.
Mercadante’s artistic journey is marked by a constant quest for the “texture” of the image. Starting with the use of earth pigments, oxides, and palette knives in painting, the artist transferred this manual skill to street photography, arriving at a unique and distinctive style.
Rejecting digital perfection, Francesco places hand-crafted frosted glass filters, made by himself, between the lens and the world.
This process transforms the act of photography into a ritual: by manually rotating the filter, he enters a “new world”, a dimension in which urban reality dissolves. Mercadante seeks the exact point where light, interacting with the irregularities of the glass, transforms passers-by and architecture into swathes of vibrant, “liquid” colour.
This aesthetic found its fullest expression in 2024 with the solo exhibition “Il colore della gente” at the Arcus Art Gallery Lab in Reggio Emilia, accompanied by the book of the same name published by Corsiero Editore.
His works, which evoke the dynamism of Ernst Haas and the poetics of transparency found in Saul Leiter’s photography, have received prestigious international accolades, including features in Vogue Italia and publications in Marie Claire. The year 2024 marked a period of institutional recognition: after exhibiting in major Italian venues, from the Chamber of Deputies to the Maschio Angioino, he was awarded the Biennial Art and Culture Prize at the Matera Art Festival, organised by the International Academy of the Dioscuri.
In 2025, he consolidated his relationship with the Sofi Gallery RT Bergamo, the gallery that now represents him and with which he has presented two major solo exhibitions. The first, in February, was dedicated to the project “Among the Thousand Colours of Naples”. The second, titled “Through Me: Four Visions of Light and Landscape”, featured four previously unseen projects: “Wild Majesty”, “The Winter of the Soul”, “The Dance of the Kites”, and “A Dream Called the Coast”. The international reach of his work expanded further in April and May 2025, with his participation in Artexpo New York and Frieze New York. At the invitation of the International Academy of the Dioscuri, he exhibited the work “Through the Glass: Weaves of Liquid Love” in the prestigious setting of the Royal Palace of Caserta.
In 2026, at the invitation of the Art Global cultural association, he presented his work “Eternal Sunset” at the “Giovanni Spadolini” Senate Library in Rome. [Official Website]
