Turin-based artist Francesco Pirazzi paints charged, nocturne-like scenes where architecture and nature take the stage in uncanny light. For me, paintings represent an attempt (sometimes more successful, sometimes less so) to grasp a something that for some reason deeply moves me, agitates me, says Pirazzi. His canvases lean into what cant quite be named, holding the viewer at the threshold of perception.
Across these atmospheric, dreamlike works, deceptively simple structures, trees, and walkways glow against deep shadows. Minimalist archways, luminescent clouds, and exaggerated perspectives gather into bold chromatic tableaux that suggest reality slightly out of joint. What drives my research is the feeling that something in reality is slightly off, that before my eyes lies an indecipherable enigma, Pirazzi says. He also enjoys how painting can encompass both reality and the unknowable world, and the ways the two converge.
Light is the organizing force: it shapes mood, establishes hierarchies among elements, and guides what we notice first versus what slowly emerges. Illumination, for Pirazzi, also reveals whats missing. Absence is centered as intently as the structures, plants, fences, and other objects that populate his scenes, drawing attention to the unseen on equal footing with the visible. The subjects are recurring: trees, street lamps, houses, windows, hedges, and a few others that I feel I use as actors on a stage, each aware of their role, he says.
Selected works
- Santa (2025), oil on linen, 100 x 90 centimeters
- Momenti (2024), oil on linen, 70 x 80 centimeters
- Quasi ora (2025), oil on linen, 60 x 85 centimeters
- Dal fuori (2024), oil on linen, 80 x 110 centimeters
- Nessuno (2025), oil on linen, 75 x 100 centimeters
- Ode (2025), oil on linen, 90 x 120 centimeters
On view in Turin
Starting Octobe 28, the artists work will be on view at Luce Gallery in Turin. The same motifs and tonal contrasts that animate these oil-on-linen paintingstrees, street lamps, houses, windows, and hedgesook set for a focused encounter with the gallery space.
Pirazzis practice meets the eye with clarity while keeping its mysteries intact, balancing presence with absence until each elementand its shadowassumes a role in the unfolding scene.
