EYES

The gaze of a cyclist on the wall of a mountain cinema — the Ghisallo looks on from above.

This mural was created by artist Neve in August 2021 on the exterior wall of the Cineteatro Grigna in Civenna, comune di Bellagio, Como.

A large-scale mural painted in August 2021 on the exterior wall of the Cineteatro Grigna in Civenna — a small hilltop village in the comune di Bellagio, in the province of Como, perched above Lake Como and Lake Lecco. Civenna stands on the road that cyclists climb from Bellagio and the Brianza valleys, in the shadow of the Madonna del Ghisallo — the patron saint of cyclists, whose chapel and museum sit a few kilometres away on the same ridge. The mural is visible from the Ghisallo, as if keeping watch over the road. This was the first mural ever made in the Civenna/Bellagio locality. The work took Neve over three days to complete and measures 15 metres across. The image fills the entire width of the building wall with a single subject: a pair of eyes. Close-cropped from brow to midcheek — only the eyes, nothing else. The rendering is monochromatic grey and black, in the hyperrealist spray mode of Neve's large-scale practice, except for the irises: vivid, precisely rendered blue, insisting on colour in the otherwise achromatic field. These are described as the competitive gaze of a cyclist — not the landscape, not the summit, not the effort, but the expression on the face of someone in the act of racing. The brow is slightly furrowed, the gaze directed forward: concentrated, measuring, unsentimental. The eyes of a person for whom the climb is not an end but a means; who looks at the road ahead rather than the view below. From the village, the viewer standing under the wall is addressed by these eyes directly. The mural places the cyclist's gaze in permanent residence at Civenna: the competitive look of the rider who passed through here now looks out permanently from the wall of the cinema, over the road, toward the Ghisallo, visible from that same chapel ridge where the patron saint of cyclists watches over those who climb.