Italy, the Renaissance and the Med evoked in paintings exhibition

Madeleine Gera's latest exhibition brings the beauty and variety of Florentine gardens into the rooms the paintings adorn, "evoking Italy, the Renaissance and the Mediterranean".

Although gardens have been a long-standing interest and featured in her previous work, Florentine Gardens is a full-blown collection of 20 oil-on-canvas paintings - the result of Madeleine's spring sojourn in Italy during which she decided to capture the inspirational Tuscan gardens.

They are being exhibited at the Cleland & Souchet outlet at Portomaso from tomorrow to the end of the month.

Always keen on learning and "refreshing" her talent, Madeleine attended a school of art last spring to study life drawings, but it was the public and private gardens she visited, even in Chianti and Montalicino, which caught her eye "purely by chance" and became the subject of her exhibition.

As is befitting for an artist, Florence is Madeleine's second home and she has been visiting the city of art for the last 10 years. She may know it well, but the gardens and their history were an exciting discovery, which she researched extensively.

"Some date back to the 15th century; they are historical and prestigious, belonging to nobility and celebrities."

Madeleine found them interesting from the historical and architectural, as well as artistic point of view.

"Gardens in a city are a means of escape... from the hustle and bustle and the pollution. They are a refuge in a way."

A synthesis of nature and architecture, they are both wild and constructed, and Madeleine has portrayed both types.

Some of her paintings are more structured, the gardens having a strong architectural element. "They are architectural spaces and not just landscapes. The hand of man is evident."

Italian gardens are divided into different areas, she explains, and Madeleine has focused on the various sections, depending on what took her fancy.

After all, with Madeleine, that is what it is all about. She never has a complex and profound explanation for anything. Things just seem to happen in her art and "what I like" plays an important role.

"I was influenced by early Renaissance paintings and looked at Botticelli and Masolino for colour," she said.

Florentine Gardens is a move away from her last exhibition, depicting cityscapes and figures, at St James Cavalier last year. An indication of Madeleine's versatility, the change is due simply to "a change in environment".

In fact, her next collection of paintings may be a portrait of a town, Sliema, or Vittoriosa, and its inhabitants.