LA NOTA MANCANTE

A curatorial journey exploring absence, longing, and memory, where the unseen note becomes the most resonant of all.

“Memory rarely survives as a complete image; rather, it returns in fragments through
atmospheres, sensations, and fleeting impressions that resist language. A scent remembered but impossible to name, a sound that lingers in the mind, the emotional residue of a gesture or a face: La Nota Mancante begins from this condition, from the
awareness that what is missing often resonates more deeply than what is fully present.”

This exhibition is curated by Alexandra Mazzanti and informed by the work of scent historian and sensory curator Caro Verbeek, with the support of IFF directed by Bernardo Fleming.

~ Fondazione Maddalena Di Giacomo

I am very honored that The Day-Dream (Secret Understanding) is included in the Inaugural Exhibition La Nota Mancante (“The Missing Note”) at the Fondazione Maddalena Di Giacomo in Venice, Italy. The inauguration reception is to be held on 21 May 2026 with the show on view from 22 May 2026 thru 21 November 2026.

I visited the Fondazione Maddalena Di Giacomo in Venice, Italy in early April and was absolutely enchanted. The fondazione occupies the piano nobile of the Palazzo Valier which has been lovingly renovated and restored by founder and director Alexandra Mazzanti in honor of her mother Maddalena Di Giacomo who dedicated her life to dance, art and music. The exhibition spaces felt like a jewel box, each room revealing a story and a unique sensory experience, a temple to memory, scent and art.

I especially love Alexandra’s collection of 18th Century miniature portraits including Georgian lover’s eye jewelry. Contemporary paintings hang alongside historical and modern masters. It is a unique and magical experience perfectly set within the breathtaking beauty of Venice. A lovely story about the fondazione was recently in Vogue Italia who kindly included an image of my painting. Needless to say the fondazione and its founder’s instagram are worth a follow @alexandramazzantibaldi and @fondazione_maddalenadigiacomo

 I went thro’ many wayward moods

To see you dreaming—and, behind,

    A summer crisp with shining woods.

And I too dream’d, until at last

    Across my fancy, brooding warm,

The reflex of a legend past,

    And loosely settled into form.

~“The Day-Dream” by Tennyson

The Day-Dream (Secret Understanding)
32×30 inches, oil on aluminum panel
©️2025 Fatima Ronquillo

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight
Drawn after you, – you pattern of all those.
    Yet seem’d it winter still, and, you away,
    As with your shadow I with these did play.

~ "Sonnet 98: From you have I been absent in the spring" by William Shakespeare

From You Have I Been Absent in the Spring (Hand with William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 98 and Lover’s Eye)
8 x 6 inches, oil on aluminum panel
©️2026 Fatima Ronquillo

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font.
The firefly wakens; waken thou with me.

~ from "The Princess: Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

No flower hath spoken
     Of hope until now!
How welcome this token,
     The green Myrtle bough!
No gift could be better;
     Unless he would write,
Three words in a letter, –
     ‘Expect me to-night.’

~ from "The Myrtle" by Thomas Haynes Bayly

Suitor with Myrtle and Lover’s Eye
12 x 10 inches, oil on aluminum panel
©️2026 Fatima Ronquillo

When he was by, the birds such pleasure took,
That some would sing, some other in their bills
     Would bring him mulberries,
     And ripe-red cherries. 
He fed them with his sight, they him with berries. 
 
 ~ from "Venus and Adonis" by William Shakespeare

Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears;
Yet slower, yet, O faintly, gentle springs:
List to the heavy part the music bears,
Woe weeps out her division, when she sings.
Droop, herbs and flowers,
Fall grief in showers;
Our beauties are not ours:
O, I could still,
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
Drop, drop, drop, drop,
Since nature’s pride is, now, a withered daffodil.

 ~ "Echo's Song" by Ben Jonson

Narcissus with Tears and Lover’s Eye
12 x 10 inches, oil on aluminum panel
©️2026 Fatima Ronquillo

To see the rest of the show images and the accompanying poems which inspired them please click here
https://fatimaronquillo.com/2026/03/05/exhibition-temple-of-flora-dorothy-circus-gallery-london-march-30-april-25-2026/

It was a lover and his lass,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

That o’er the green cornfield did pass,

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;

Sweet lovers love the spring.

~ excerpt from “As You Like It” by William Shakespeare

Oh Rose, you perfect thing beyond compare,
infinitely restrained
and infinitely lavished, oh, head
of a body with far too much wandering sweetness,

nothing is equal to you, oh you supreme essence
of this inconstant hour,
your perfume wanders all about
this space of love we have scarcely entered.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by David Need)

Profile with Roses
12×10 inches, oil on aluminum panel
©️2026 Fatima Ronquillo

The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn’t a place
in this world that doesn’t

sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage

shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.

~ excerpt from "Poppies" by Mary Oliver 

Perhaps the tulip know the fickleness
Of Fortune's smile, for on her stalk's green shaft
She bears a wine cup through the wilderness

~ from Hafez Translated by: Gertrude Bell

Hand with Serpent and Tulips
10×10 inches, oil on aluminum panel
©️2026 Fatima Ronquillo

To see the rest of the show images and the accompanying poems which inspired them please click here.
https://fatimaronquillo.com/2026/03/23/temple-of-flora-dorothy-circus-gallery-london-march-30-april-25-2026-preview-march-28-5-7-pm/