The world of Pallocchi

It all started as a joke, during a break at work: a wry face, big expressive eyes, and an affectionate nickname. Thus, almost as a joke, the first Pallocchio was born.

Since then the Pallocchi have grown with me.

They are small creatures with large, deep eyes, without mouths or noses, because everything comes from the gaze. Funny, melancholic, dreamy: they tell of emotions, silences, unspoken thoughts.

My Pallocchi are created using a mixed media technique, pencil and watercolor. They come to life as imaginary characters, commissioned portraits, or ironic and poetic reinterpretations of icons from the history of art and pop culture.

As art historian Elisabetta La Rosa wrote, " Francesca Storai creates a poetics in which, in addition to the stylization of the figure, a study of the emotions that filter through the eyes emerges. The reader is stripped of other somatic features to find emotional fragments in the movements of the soul that come to life from the gaze ."

Art returned to my life in 2020, during lockdown, a difficult and lonely time. Drawing became a refuge, a cure, a language.

By sharing my work on social media, a world of color, kindness, and wonder was born. And today, Pallocchi inhabit notebooks, mugs, canvases, fabrics, and hearts.

As Report Pistoia also wrote,

“ An original language for expressive and colorful drawings. ”