Welcome to the Luana Lapi Online Gallery!

Luana Lapi was born in Florence, where she lives and works.

Graduated in advertising graphics at the Cappiello Academy of Florence, in 1994 she earns her Diploma in design, painting and graphic art at the Institute for the Arts and Restoration at Palazzo Spinelli of Florence. Luana exhibits her art since 1994, and to date has held over twenty solo exhibitions. She also has participated, by invitation, at various exhibitions in Italy and abroad. Her paintings are exhibited in several art galleries, and Italian museums. Luana’s artistic life always has featured an alternation between her pictorial work, and her theatrical activity, integrating this with theater multimedia.

In 2012 Luana, along with the artist Enrico Bandelli, is elected Vice President of the prestigious, Florence based Gruppo Donatello, becoming a “Cultural Animator”, collaborating with the Florentine institutions. At the end of the mandate, which lasted three years, Luana becomes President Ad Interim of the Grupppo Donatello. That same year she creates the Nativity D’Autore, together with Enrico Bandelli, and Gianni Oliveti. 

With the collaboration of the District 2 of the City of Florence, the Nativity is set up in Piazza Donatello, where 45 artists create about 90 real size wooden silhouettes, that painters from the Gruppo Donatello paint, portraying, among the characters, many of the merchants of the surrounding area. Due to the great success of the installation, Florence made it an annual event. She has participated in the project “Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvino; four cycles of teaching elementary school in Pontedera. 

With her sculpture Luana has attended the Florentine International Sculpture Symposium “Premio Antonio Berti”, winning the first and the third prize.

• In 2012, she designed the shirt “Watch Florence”, a prestigious footrace that takes place every year in Florence. The event is organized by Marathon, with the High Patronage of the Ministry of Education. The same year she designed the Palio Carlo Lorenzini (Collodi) for the S. Stefano Trophy. 

• In 2013, at the request of the City of Florence, which hosted the Cycling World Championships, Luana paints a mural of 2m x 3m, and together with murals by twelve other artists of her Gruppo Donatello, creates the new face of the famous Impianto Padovani, Florence Sport Center.

• In May 2014 she holds a solo exhibition at the headquarters of the Gruppo Donatello, with a series of new paintings dedicated to the River Arno and its sights, entitled “In Riva D’Arno”. In September, the exhibition is set as a tribute to Silvio Polloni, at the “Ville Sull’Arno.”

• In March of 2015 Luana will receive the prestigious Toscana Cultura Donna, for the cultural activities she has carried out for the city of Florence.

Many have written about Luana’s work; among others, Pina Andronicus Tosonotti, Luciano Artusi, Bona Baraldi, Paolo Becattini, Attilio Bellanca, Rossana Bossaglia, Luca Calvani, Pier Paolo Castellucci, Manlio Chieppa, Claudia Del Re, Ugo Fortini, Guillermo Mariotto, Corrado Marsan, Mario Pachioli, and Maurizio Vanni.

Theatre:  

Luana, deeply rooted in her territory, is a lover of Tuscan traditions, both in language and customs. In fact, she has written three plays in her Vernacular, and collaborates with the City District 2 for the Premio Augusto Novelli. From 2004 to 2007 Luana and her partner Valerio Casciarri own the restaurant L’uovo di Colombo (Columbus’Egg), located in Mugello. In the restaurant she creates, and recites, along with Valerio, performances of mime, and organizes a small theater, attended by major actors of the Tuscan territory . In September 2014, she writes for the series “Teatro in Barca” (Theatre in a Boat), and together with her company, on a boat under the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, recites a play dedicated to the “renaioli” (sand diggers) of the early twentieth century.