Artist Statement: In creating the artistic decoration of the "Tao" Sing for Hope Piano, Rita created a polychrome pictorial work whose design removed the sharp edges, straight lines, edges, and corners of the SFH Piano's structure. She created continuous curved lines and colorful strokes, even contrasting ones, that merge into a unity, just like the symbol of the Tao, the foundation of Eastern culture where positive and negative, good and evil, are united and balanced in harmony. The name TAO given to the SFH Piano was chosen by the students of the Zoagli elementary school through an internal competition organized with the teachers. The front panel of the SFH Piano was embellished with a mosaic composed of faceted tiles spelling the word PEACE in thirteen world languages, to emphasize the fact that it is an instrument of peace and that through music, the peoples of the world can unite, abandoning war and violence. In her work, Rita collaborated with Valeria, a young artist from Zoagli and a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Genoa, for the finishing touches to the Sing for Hope Piano.
Rita Tomasoni, a completely self-taught Italian artist, has lived in Zoagli, in the province of Genoa, since 2005, after moving from Lombardy. In Zoagli, the artist has created an open-air exhibition of original works, mostly made from recycled materials, thanks to her particular sensitivity to recycling, which transforms the most disparate objects into artistic compositions, in keeping with her motto: "The landfill can wait." The exhibition, located in a very quiet spot on the first hill of Zoagli known as "The Fairy Woods," brings to life the faces of many curious characters, constructed from terracotta or wood, sometimes embellished with delicate mosaics, some of ethnic inspiration. They peer out from the woods and observe passersby, becoming a constant attraction for the numerous tourists who walk the path from Zoagli to the ancient hilltop hamlet of Semorile.
