Ceramics as matter that preserves memory of gesture, as surface on which signs and time are stratified, as ambivalent form between the archaic and the contemporary: this is the expressive territory in which Fiorenza Pancino (1966, S. Stino di Livenza, Venice) situates her own research, rooted in the Faenza tradition but capable of transcending it to become existential reflection. The solo exhibition “Oro vivo”, curated by Margherita Maccaferri at BoA Spazio Arte, brings together a corpus of recent works through which the artist returns a path of spiritual alchemy aimed at transforming pain, anger and the darkest emotions into a form of contemplative beauty.
Fiorenza Pancino, “Oro vivo”, installation view at BoA Spazio Arte, ph. Cristina Bagnara, courtesy BoA Spazio Arte, Bologna
The installation balances wall compositions and suspended sculptures that traverse the aerial space of the gallery constructing a complex geography, where the gaze is solicited to move between surfaces, volumes and fragments. In “La Rabbia” (2020/2026), the most extensive of the mural installations, dozens of white and beige ceramic tiles form a vibrating surface, further animated by lace cuttings and tiny handwritten inscriptions traced in pale blue that seem like private annotations, fragments of an intimate diary surfacing from the matter. The presence of fabric, inserted between the tiles and in the upper frame, introduces a tactile and domestic dimension that contrasts with the preciousness of the enameled ceramics, suggesting an interweaving between the sphere of female manual labor and the sculptural dimension of the contemporary work. The same type of structure returns in “Sacro Gral” (2026), small sculpture in which a cascade of majolica discs enameled in various golden gradations (it is inevitable to perceive them as coins) descends from an upper edge in fringed fabric. Gold, material that gives the title to the exhibition and that recurs in numerous works, in this project is used by the artist as symbolic medium capable of converting the “heavy material” of existence into something that shines and reflects light.
Fiorenza Pancino, “Oro vivo”, installation view at BoA Spazio Arte, ph. Cristina Bagnara, courtesy BoA Spazio Arte, Bologna
Large suspended vertical installations occupy the second room of the gallery, articulating themselves as totemic presences that descend from the ceiling until touching the floor, where they arrange themselves in circular or serpentine compositions. “Mistero blu” (2024/2025) presents itself as a long sequence of ceramic elements, enameled in intense cobalt blue, platinum and black, pierced by a ductile steel wire. The modular logic of the composition, in which flattened discoid forms, cylindrical elements and other more irregular components alternate, creates a visual rhythm that recalls simultaneously the rosary, the devotional necklace and the vertebral column. The chromatic choice of deep blue, color connected to the spiritual and contemplative sphere, is charged here with the material density conferred on ceramic surfaces by the traces of manual working. Alongside this dark and introverted presence, “Silenzio in bianco” (2022) and “Ho trovato piume d’angelo bianco” (2025) materialize an opposite chromatic dimension through the use of white enamels on majolica and porcelain. In these sequences of beads alternating with large leaves or feathers that hang downward the course of the structure suggests the idea of a slowed fall, as if the work wanted to try to slow in its vertical path the effects of the force of gravity. The floor terminations of these suspended sculptures, anchoring the work to physical space, seem to want to bring back to unity the opposites of aspiration upward and rootedness to the ground.
Fiorenza Pancino, “Oro vivo”, installation view at BoA Spazio Arte, ph. Cristina Bagnara, courtesy BoA Spazio Arte, Bologna
The four “Salvadanai” (2026) exhibited in the display window (enameled in red, blue/violet, green, turquoise) introduce a slyly disturbing dimension for the choice of an object connected to ideas of accumulation and saving. Embellished with gold, silver or platinum, these sculptural objects hybrid between traditional decorative ceramics and contemporary sculpture become vehicles of a reflection on the conservation of value and on transformation. Their presence in the exhibition space creates an ironic counterpoint with respect to the suspended environmental installations, bringing the monumental dimension of the work back to a more familiar scale. “Gold” (2025), finally, large stylized head in gold on majolica, archaic and contemporary idol at the same time, proposes itself as an enigmatic object of secular cult apt to interrogate our relationship with the precious, the sacred and with what we consider worthy of veneration.
Fiorenza Pancino, “Oro vivo”, installation view at BoA Spazio Arte, ph. Cristina Bagnara, courtesy BoA Spazio Arte, Bologna
What emerges from this varied constellation of works is a passionate celebration of the transformative power of art understood as cathartic practice and as process through which the artist elaborates her own emotions converting them into visible and tangible forms. Ceramics, matter that by its nature must pass through fire to solidify and become permanent, offers itself as effective metaphor of this alchemical process: just as soft and formless clay must be subjected to the heat of the kiln to transform into durable object, so chaotic and destructuring emotions must be traversed, elaborated and transformed by the creative act to become thaumaturgical aesthetic objects. The exhibition as a whole appears, in the final instance, as an investigation into the possibility of art to become instrument of existential elaboration and of transformation of lived experience into form. And it is precisely to this processual dimension that the title “Oro vivo” seems to allude: not the dead gold of accumulated and inert treasure, but a substance that pulses and continues to transform itself because it carries within itself the active memory of the process through which it was generated.
Info:
Fiorenza Pancino. Oro vivo
27/01/2026 – 08/03/2026
curated by Margherita Maccaferri
BoA Spazio Arte
via Barberia 24/a – Bologna
www.boaspazioarte.it
Graduated in art history at DAMS in Bologna, city where she continued to live and work, she specialized in Siena with Enrico Crispolti. Curious and attentive to the becoming of the contemporary, she believes in the power of art to make life more interesting and she loves to explore its latest trends through dialogue with artists, curators and gallery owners. She considers writing a form of reasoning and analysis that reconstructs the connection between the artist’s creative path and the surrounding context.
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