From January 12 to February 3, 2018, Street Levels Gallery presented the first solo exhibition of Fabio Petani in Florence. Spagyria – Alchimia vegetale was the title of his exhibition, referring to the ancient alchemical methodology that guides the artist in his works on canvas and on the wall. According to Spagyria, all living species base their vital dynamics on the concept of trinity, expressed in the figure of the triangle. Using the same method as a plant alchemist, Petani performs in his works a process of splitting the three elements, the three symbols and the three working philosophies that form this primary triangle.

An artist who has always combined painting with his passion for botany and chemistry, Petani is constantly looking for plants and flowers with which to contaminate his creations.

In each work, the artist inserts the nomenclature of the plant and then reproduces it pictorially, as in a herbarium or chemical archive that contains all his works. In an unusual combination of ancient medieval manuscripts and graphic and geometric insertions with a contemporary character, Petani’s works form a hortus novus of the present, in which each content has been alchemically translated through new interpretative keys.

ALTRO