Willow Art Space is excited to present the group exhibition Not too far, not too close, in collaboration with Andrea Festa Fine Art. The exhibition brings together seven international artists — Mary DeVincentis, Ṣọlá Olúlòde, Valdrin Thaqi, Elias Njima, Lisa Ivory, Zhang Shangfeng, and Ralf Kokke— whose practices probe the intersections of daily life, myth, imagination, gender, and personal growth. Each work creates a physical and psychological distance that is close enough to perceive nuance, yet far enough to preserve autonomy.

The opening reception will take place on Friday, September 19, from 6 to 9 p.m., and the exhibition will run through October 30, 2025, at Andrea Festa, Lungotevere degli Altoviti 1, Rome, Italy.

“Not too far, not too close” draws on the widely known Goldilocks principle — the proposition that optimal outcomes arise from a state of precise balance. In astrobiology, planets positioned at an exact orbital distance from their star can sustain liquid water, making life possible. In economics, an economy warm enough to sustain steady growth yet cool enough to avoid inflation achieves a balance between growth, employment, and price stability. In developmental psychology, the most effective learning occurs when the complexity of material is calibrated to be neither overly simplistic nor prohibitively challenging.

Standing before a painting is much the same: the most meaningful engagement occurs at just the right physical and psychological distance — close enough to perceive nuance, yet far enough to preserve the work’s autonomy.

Mary DeVincentis’s paintings hover between myth and memory, imagination and lived experience — never too far as to feel remote, never too close as to dissolve into certainty. Whether a figure lies upon an endless green meadow, seems on the verge of being swept away by a surging stream, or kneels before a fractured sun with a body scattered in green leaves, they dwell in a threshold space. As intermediaries, they embody the fragile balance of proximity and distance, binding together past and future, experience and imagination.

Lisa Ivory’s travellers move through a liminal, mythical terrain — a ruined Eden that hovers between ruin and renewal. They exist in shifting proximity with nature, near enough to spark a fire yet distant enough to drift past. Figures of death and life co-exist, one watching the other from afar, present and absent at once. Within and beyond the canvas, binaries collapse in this space of distance, revealing a fragile balance between intimacy and detachment, belonging and estrangement.

Ralf Kokke paints from memory, dream, and fleeting visual impulse. His figures, at once contemporary and fantastical, are steeped in classical compositional echoes, carrying with them a sense of timelessness. The textured surfaces often resemble ancient cave murals, weighted by their visual density and historical resonance. In Kokke’s work, divergent intentions collapse into a shared destination: the threshold where personal reverie meets collective memory. His paintings stage a dialogue between past and present, where archaic echoes and contemporary visions coalesce into a single, fluid temporality.

Elias Njima’s paintings unfold with the continuity of a novel — sequential and narrative, imbued with an undercurrent of tension. In one, the crimson radiance of a ceiling lamp illuminates a man’s visage while rendering peripheral figures indistinct. In another, blossoms appear opulent yet verge on decay. Each composition induces a suspension, compelling the imagination to extend beyond the pictorial field. The compositions shift attention from daily reality to the hidden corners of memory, where the most distant past meets the nearest future, and where every emotion depends on the right balance of elements.

Ṣọlá Olúlòde’s work is suffused with fluidity — of gender, of relationship, of presence. Often, two figures intertwine yet retain their autonomy, even as they bathe in memories of intimacy, forming a quiet sense of unity. By illuminating these tender, everyday moments, Olúlòde reveals connections that resonate profoundly, held in the delicate balance of not too far, not too close.

Zhang Shangfeng’s work embodies this delicate tension: a man who is growing up yet never fully grown, a confrontation that is at once violent and tender. In one painting, an adult man squeezes into clothes a size too small, hands on his hips as if imitating maturity; in another, a seemingly powerless figure wields a scepter studded with nails. Not too far, not too close — this is the distance of becoming, suspended between childhood play and adult gravity, between vulnerability and resistance to the world.

In Valdrin Thaqi’s painting, a woman reclines beside a window, accompanied by her own sculptural likeness. Beyond her lies an expansive lake and verdant terrain, yet her countenance remains pensive, tinged with melancholy. Far enough to glimpse the vastness beyond, close enough to drift into the quiet of her mind.

Each scene appears poised on the edge of revelation, as if something will happen soon, yet time must still pass. Not too far, not too close — just about to happen.

This is also the balance at which the artists create: between internal experience and external reality. Their works occupy the threshold where closeness offers intimacy and distance grants perspective. In stillness, the quiet moments of everyday life are examined — where the mind lingers on the smallest details and beauty emerges from simplicity.

Here, not too far, not too close becomes more than a concept; it becomes a way of perceiving, of moving through time — where we’ve been, where we are now, and where we are going. It is an invitation to linger, to sense, to understand, to feel, to meet life in its quiet moments, suspended in the grace of measured distance.

The Artists
Mary DeVincentis (1951, USA)
Painter Mary DeVincentis Herzog employs her deeply personal iconography to investigate the universal dilemmas and mysteries of existence. While influenced by Buddhism and psychotherapy, her paintings also draw from Western modernism, post-modernism, and decades of study in South Asian and Tibetan art. She is currently working on Dark Matters, exploring the shadow side of human experience, and Sin Eaters, portraying society’s saints, martyrs, scapegoats, and outcasts. Her work has been shown at Life on Mars Gallery, the International Print Center, the New York Public Library, White Columns, and the Brooklyn Museum. It is held in numerous public and private collections. She received her BFA from the Maryland Institute
College of Art and a Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Printmaking from St.
Martin’s College of Art, London. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Ṣọlá Olúlòde (1996, UK)
Ṣọlá Olúlòde is based in London and received her BA in Fine Art Painting from the University of Brighton in 2018. Her dreamy queer visions explore embodiments of British Black Womxn and Non-Binary Folx. Working with natural dyeing, batik, wax, ink, pastel, oil bar, and impasto, she creates textural canvases that examine fluid identities. Drawing from lived experiences and cultural references, she centers Black queer womxn, underscoring the importance of representation and celebration of queer intimacies.

Valdrin Thaqi (1994, Kosovo)
Valdrin Thaqi lives and works between Prishtina and Berlin. A graduate of the
Academy of Arts in Prishtina, his multidisciplinary practice spans painting and installation. Recent solo exhibitions include Short Poems and Other Tales / A Play by Valdrin Thaqi (Hajde Foundation / Grand Hotel, Prishtina, 2024); I think I see it now (Bazament Art Space, Tirana, 2024); You do realize, there is a place where the sidewalk ends (East Contemporary Gallery, Milan, 2023); and It’s been a while since I saw a cloud in the sky (Motrat Gallery, Prishtina, 2019). Selected group shows include Silent Threads(Continua Gallery, Paris, 2025); Artists of Tomorrow (Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art, Prishtina, 2022); Kosovo Art Collection (Kosovo National Gallery of Arts (2022); Manifesta 14 (2022); and Nothing Like Home (LambdaLambdaLambda Gallery, Prishtina, 2021). He received the Muslim Mulliqi Award (2018) and the Young Artists Award (2019) from the Kosovo National Gallery of Arts, and was nominated for the Stacion Centre for Contemporary Art Award (2022).

Elias Njima (1994, Switzerland)
Elias Njima lives and works in Geneva. After training as a graphic designer at CFPA Geneva, he moved to Amsterdam in 2014, earning a BA in Fine Arts from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2018. In the Netherlands, he developed a pictorial language blending contemporary and local influences with references to his country of origin. Since returning to Switzerland in 2020, he has expanded his practice to include etching and sculpture, particularly ceramics.

Lisa Ivory (1966, UK)
Lisa Ivory lives and works in London. She graduated in Fine Art Painting from St Martins School of Art in 1988. Her practice explores otherness and its dual nature of fear and attraction. She creates fantastical worlds populated by mythical creatures — wild men, chimeras, hybrids, spectres — drawing from classical archetypes. Recent exhibitions include Yusto/Giner (Madrid), Veta (Madrid), Fabian Lang Gallery (Zurich), and solo shows at Nino Mier Gallery (Brussels), CZA (Milan), Charlie Smith London, and Pamela Salisbury (New York).

Zhang Shangfeng (1998, China)
Zhang Shangfeng lives and works in Xi’an. His paintings depict the darkest moment of adventure: the trance, the impassivity before choice. Often masculine, his figures embody the adventurer — both myth and loner, powerful yet suspended in moments before victory or defeat. Zhang values the spirit of adventure but highlights its loneliness: an indifference before action.

Ralf Kokke (1989, Netherlands)
Ralf Kokke (b. 1989, Netherlands) lives and works in Dordrecht. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Kokke creates paintings that merge memory and storytelling, blending layered textures and handmade pigments to evoke intimate yet universal narratives inspired by childhood dreams, naïve and folk art, and early Renaissance masters. He has held solo exhibitions at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery (London, Berlin) and Hans Alf Gallery(Copenhagen), participated in major group exhibitions including Where the Wild Roses Grow (Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, 2023) and LIAISON | THE PAPER SHOW (Better Go South, Copenhagen, 2024), and presented his work at international art fairs such as Enter Art Fair (Copenhagen) and Contemporary Art Now (Ibiza). His paintings are represented in significant collections including the Dordrechts Museum, the Van Gogh Huis Collection, and the Vietnam Art Collection, and in 2024 he was nominated for the Dutch Royal Painting Award.

To register your interest in acquiring available works, please kindly email info@willowartspace.com.

For more works, please click the Works above or here.