pietro fachini paints the ecosystem of the wilderness in pigments from harvested earth

tales from the feathered lands at artnoble gallery

Italian artist Pietro Fachini immersed himself in a cork oak forest in rural Sardinia for several months, the Mediterranean island becoming a recurrent destination for Fachini as he annually returned to paint and harvest coloring earths, transforming them into natural pigments. His solo exhibition Racconti dalle terre piumate (Tales from the feathered lands), curated by Arnold Braho and on display at ArtNoble Gallery in Milan, follows this creative process and takes on fable features right from its title. It unfolds as a cosmogony of tales weaving together the visual imagery of a land teeming with cork forests, small insects, and polychrome feathers. These elements constitute the dynamic forces of a wild dimension, creating a narrative that captures the essence of an ecosystem in constant flux.

pietro fachini embraces the essence of nature

With Tales from the feathered lands, Pietro Fachini employs a narrative approach to recall the natural story of a living organism continually subjected to its own dispossession — a microcosm composed of micro-stories, traces, memories, and records in constant mutation. The artist’s painting practice is conceived as a research tool, delving into the transformation of natural elements through organic and representational modes. Whether exploring pigments, always open to learning new ways of producing colour, or seeking living subjects as muses, he engages not merely with nature, but within nature itself.

Pietro Fachini focuses his attention on spontaneous manifestations through meditative processes and pictorial stratifications, developing a reflection on figuration and its limitations. The transformation is then reflected in the artist’s painting practice: while on the one hand the attempt is to be as realistic as possible through painting on panel, though with an abstraction of its content, on the other hand the effort is to instead abstract the image through the search for a primitivism that maintains its recognizability through the use of the monotype. ‘Memory, conceived as an operation of the imagination, brings to light the possibilities of a wild world made up of apparitions, allegories with magical features, and ferocity. Gradually every fact lends itself to interpretation and resolution in terms of metamorphosis and enchantment. Everything becomes possible again, the logic that governs the world is lost: feathers adorn the forest,’ notes the artist.

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project info:

name: Tales from the feathered lands
artist: Pietro Fachini

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