They wrote about her:
Marcello Nebl 2007, Chiara Girardi 2007, Pietro Marsilli 2007, Paolo Dalla Torre 2007/2008, Marco Zeni 2008, Sara Bassetti 2009, Fiorenzo Degasperi 2009/2011, Salvatore Ferrari 2010, Elisabetta Doniselli 2016, Paolo Tomio 2019
"Nature has always been an inexhaustible source of inspiration for art since man finds in it those laws that belong his own as he's "nature" himself. This truth is perceived by the painter Elisa Zeni, thanks to the rare gift of a sensitivity through which she can enter into spiritual and physical resonance with natural elements and let transfer her most intimate sensations to the canvas. She loves everything about nature: flowers, meadows, mountains, stones, but she is overall fascinated by water, the most common substance and, at the same time, more mysterious because of its iridescent and elusive essence.
Without shape and color, the water passes from the liquid to the solid or gaseous state, taking on all forms and colors without distinction; it brings life within itself by going through endless metamorphoses that only a few are able to perceive and reveal with the language of art. It is no coincidence that, in Elisa Zeni's paintings, the boundary between figuration and abstraction is always extremely blurred because, more than by the objective representation of reality, she is driven by the need to manifest through the forms and the color the emotions that the spell hypnotic water - in all its manifestations - induces in its unconscious or, better said, in its soul.
Elisa also successfully cultivates the tradition of the portrait, an undeservedly forgotten historical genre since painting a portrait is one of the most difficult themes of painting, because one must try to capture not only the similarity but also the spirit of the person who is posing. Judging by the radiant face of the smiling girl and the shy and backward attitude of the child, she managed to perfectly grasp the two personalities by demonstrating in an evocative way the relevance of this painting, when done in a workmanlike manner. "
Paolo Tomio, 2019 - icsART 2019 N.6
"Water is a constant presence in E. Zeni's works: it can be flow and transparency, so that the seabed of stones and earth reveals unusual brightness and tones. At other times the current acquires density: now the light more than from the outside , it seems to come from the depths and becomes a place of epiphanies; in its constant flow, leaves and flowers appear in front of us in a sort of momentary balance that seem to allude to an uninterrupted metamorphosis. "
Elisabetta Doniselli, 2016
"Painting water for Elisa Zeni is a kind of search for one's soul." […] “Its aquatic mirrors are eyes that look, means of communication between those who live there and the outside world. Observe, capture information from the physical world and then act accordingly. Water of life, spring water, water of salvation, for man and his spirit.
[…] “Desire for spirituality, which is never truly satisfied but always sought after. On the other hand, human aspiration is that of continuous and undeterred research. Achievement is not the end. The sense of things lies in the duration and length of the watercourse. The source and the mouth are nothing but two sides of the same coin "
Fiorenzo Degasperi, 2011
... we are faced with a research that could also be defined as a research with an antique flavor, oriented this year on two strands: here are the water routes, where this element is seen from a different angle of view than usual , that is to say from above, in search of the yield of the seabed, subjected to the continuous mutation due to the reflections of the water. The Grazing Flights, on the other hand, are seen taken from photographs taken by the artist, with the representation of mountains almost entirely hidden by clouds. "I like to think - says Elisa - that they are not simple views, but visions because man is projected into a real and at the same time boundless, almost imaginary place". In fact, the well-known image called Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer, "The wayfarer on the sea of fog" by Kaspar David Friedrich could be combined with these paintings, which have, as I said, a touch of antiquity.
Paolo Dalla Torre, 2008
Elisa Zeni retraces in her works those streets that almost two centuries ago traveled by great artists such as Caspar Friedrich and William Turner. The representation of Nature, in its changing aspects, is the foundation of his painting. A deliberately figurative painting that manages to describe with a singular force and above all with an almost religious impulse the harmony and charm of the mountain.
The mountain in Zeni's painting is intended as a Great Mother: from it, from its luminous snowfields, the pure water of the streams flows, the supreme source of life. Gashes of light on the canvas are the waterfalls, the showers that go to draw what the artist does
But it is above all in the cycle of flights Flights Grazing that Elisa Zeni expresses the harmony and grandeur of Nature with a vigor and at the same time a spirituality that pushes us almost inebriated to the romantic feeling of the sublime. In this cycle the mountains are described in a singular way, in a bird's eye view; from above, immersed in an extremely luminous atmosphere, we seem to travel by flying that part of Mother Earth that communicates directly with the universal and the cosmic. They are places halfway between reality and imagination, in which there is a sense of peace that contemporary man can find only in the intimate relationship between nature and soul. Elisa Zeni expresses this intimate, almost privileged relationship in her works. The mountains described in Grazing Flights merge between clouds and mists: here color and light merge. It seems to review the same color-light emotions represented in the Marine by Virgilio Guidi. There is all the centuries-old tradition and mastery of Venetian painting in these works. There is the wealth of chromatic passages, the intense brightness of the color found in the skies that form the backdrop to the works of Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione. With the latter, we think of the famous Storm, Elisa shares the same charm for the contemplation of nature and for the penetrating and vital correspondence that exists between man and nature itself.
Marcello Nebl, 2007