CHIARA CAPELLINI

Chiara Capellini is an Italian artist based in Milan. Her work investigates what emerges when we approach the idea of void, both material and mental. Far from being absence, the void reveals itself as a field of infinite potential, where countless possibilities exist in nature even before being observed. Her research explores this threshold, where perception encounters the invisible, and where emptiness becomes a container of latent quantity.
Her practice is rooted in painting, often on a large scale, articulated in two main series. In the first, she reflects on how, within the infinite chaos of possibilities, one is chosen, made visible, like the wave collapsing into the particle in quantum dualism. Here, the process is based on subtraction: she removes color, dissolving excess until only pure presence remains. In the second series, she investigates the endless potential positions of a particle before observation, using the opposite method, adding color, to generate layered fields that evoke suspension and indeterminacy.

Alongside painting, Capellini extends her enquiry through other media: she creates glass sculptures and luminous works, and is developing a book of interviews with leading quantum physicists. These parallel practices allow her to explore the same conceptual ground from different perspectives, offering new ways to narrate and materialize her research. Often, in her site-specific installations, she also incorporates local materials from the place where the work is conceived, making context and architecture integral to the piece. Her research is deeply influenced by the principles of quantum physics, particularly the notion that reality exists in indeterminacy until observed. Like the quantum vacuum—never an empty void but a field of fluctuations and hidden energies—her void is never absolute: it becomes a generative dimension where traces, vibrations, and latent presences emerge, suggesting that nothingness always conceals the possibility of everything.