Terre Intrecciate

Fitzpatrick Gallery presents “Terre Intrecciate”, an evocative exhibition curated in collaboration with Jacopo Mazzetti, currently on view at Palazzo Carrozzini in Soleto, Puglia. Set within the richly storied walls of this historic building, once a noble residence, later a tobacco factory, the exhibition explores layered perceptions of the sacred through a three-part structure that unfolds like a palimpsest.

At its core, “Terre Intrecciate” contemplates the universal human impulse to connect with the transcendent. It weaves together ancient and contemporary languages, personal mythologies, and spiritual codes in a silent dialogue between the earthly and the ethereal. Palazzo Carrozzini, with its rediscovered frescoes and textured history, serves as both vessel and witness to the exhibition’s themes of intertwining lives and overlapping time.

The first stratum, “The Suspended Village”, introduces the work of Romanian artist Alexandru Chira (1947–2011), whose celestial visions draw on the symbolic universe of his native village, Tăușeni, and are influenced by the metaphysical thought of Lucian Blaga. Chira constructs an artistic language that merges rural memory with cosmic significance. His layered canvases intertwine sacred geometry, text, and symbolic form to depict a world in which ritual and nature remain inextricably linked. These works do not merely illustrate a belief system—they perform it. They function as meditative devices, suggesting that the act of looking is itself a ritual, a moment of contact with the divine.

The second layer, “Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit”, brings together a constellation of historical artifacts spanning two millennia and diverse geographies. These objects—ranging from devotional items to spiritual tools—are united by a shared impulse: the desire to mediate the unknown. From carved stone talismans to worn religious icons, each bears the trace of a culture’s approach to the sacred. This stratum does not shy away from the complexities of collection and display. It acknowledges the histories of empire, displacement, and the erasure of original context. Even so, these objects retain a quiet agency. Their continued presence gestures toward a collective yearning—a persistent, global search for transcendence that resists containment.

The final layer, “Oannes: I, The First Consciousness of Chaos”, shifts the exhibition’s tone toward the contemporary and speculative. Here, works by modern and contemporary artists intervene in the historical dialogue, refusing closure or clarity. Instead, they offer moments of rupture—fragmentary, ecstatic, spectral. This stratum refuses to resolve the metaphysical inquiries initiated earlier. Rather, it sustains them in motion. By introducing tonal instability and non-linearity, these works challenge the viewer to consider their own interpretive gaze as part of the sacred gesture. The metaphysical is no longer a fixed idea, but a fluid, ever-shifting field of possibilities.

“Terre Intrecciate” does not offer a singular thesis. Instead, it invites viewers to move through its strata as one might traverse the layers of memory or myth. As the exhibition continues at Palazzo Carrozzini, it remains a living structure—attuned to time, space, and the resonant hum of human longing. Visitors encounter not just a collection of works, but a shared meditation on the sacred: interwoven, unresolved, and quietly expansive.