Giovanelli draws on this idea of secondary light to explore cathexis – the investment of psychic energy in a person, object or idea – through which images of hair, drapery and the body become charged with desire. In three new paintings, female faces with eyes closed and lips parted appear superimposed upon theatrically lit curtains, bringing together motifs previously explored independently in her work. As Giovanelli observes, ‘the curtain and the female figure charge one another’, each acquiring something of the other’s glamour, sensuality and theatrical promise.

Alongside these works, a large-scale painting of a meat carcass introduces a new subject into Giovanelli’s practice. In the artist’s delicate, luminous handling of paint, the closely cropped marbling of flesh and fat suggests, by turns, seascapes, geological formations and celestial skies, confounding distinctions of scale between the materiality of flesh and the vastness of landscape and cosmos.