Carlotta Leiter sTracciati opened at Trieste’s Sala Comunale d’Arte on Monday, 10 August 2026, bringing portraits made from discarded paper and other recovered fragments to the civic exhibition space on Piazza Unità d’Italia.
The exhibition, which runs until 31 August, presents a body of work built around transformation. Leiter combines drawing with scraps that might otherwise be overlooked, using their irregular surfaces to form predominantly female faces. The result is a series in which delicacy and audacity coexist: the figures appear vulnerable, yet the material from which they emerge gives them a stubborn physical presence.
Portraits assembled from what is left
The exhibition’s title plays on the Italian word stracciati, evoking things that are torn, worn or cast aside. According to the regional cultural listing, Leiter’s use of waste material is not simply decorative. Paper pieces and other remnants become part of the drawing itself, supporting an argument that beauty and meaning can be recovered from what appears insignificant or forgotten.
That approach gives the show an accessible entry point while leaving room for more difficult associations. Torn surfaces can suggest damage, interruption and repair. By bringing them into portraits, Leiter turns material traces into signs of interior life. The official presentation describes the faces as fragile but bold, a tension that carries the exhibition beyond a straightforward celebration of recycling.
A return shaped by an earlier silence
Carlotta Leiter sTracciati also marks a return to artistic practice after a long period of creative silence. The exhibition was previously presented by the Trieste cultural association Parole Controvento, where the artist described creativity as something present since childhood but gradually pushed aside.
Leiter was born in Trieste in 1997 and now lives in nearby Muggia. A profile from the Fondazione Caraian places her practice alongside volunteer work and collaborative cultural projects, including activities with the MArte collective. That local grounding matters here: the show’s move into a municipal gallery gives an emerging practice a public platform in the centre of the artist’s home city.
A civic setting in the heart of Trieste
The Sala Comunale d’Arte is a compact 40-square-metre venue devoted to temporary exhibitions. Its address on Piazza Unità d’Italia places the work within one of Trieste’s most visible public spaces, rather than in a private or specialist setting. Admission is free, and the exhibition is open daily from 10am to 1pm and from 5pm to 8pm.
The 10 August opening gives the project a clear event of its own, while the three-week run allows the portraits to remain available beyond the vernissage. For Leiter, the exhibition connects personal renewal with the civic life of Trieste. For visitors, it proposes a direct idea: discarded fragments can retain histories, and art can make those histories visible without smoothing away their damage.
Featured image: Piazza Unità d’Italia in Trieste, the square where the Sala Comunale d’Arte is located. This contextual photograph does not show the exhibition or Carlotta Leiter’s artworks. Photo by Fred Romero, 2017, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. No editorial modification other than automatic WordPress resizing.
.jpg){kind=link}