In Milan / Turin / Verona from November 2025 to January 2026

MARCOROSSI artecontemporanea presents Urbs ex arboribus, the first solo exhibition by Luca Pancrazzi at its Milan, Turin, and Verona galleries. The project brings together a significant selection of recent works, offering the public an opportunity to reflect on the city as a living organism—poised between the artificial and the natural—and to imagine new models of coexistence between humans and the environment.

“It’s a challenging project because it involved almost a year of work. It’s a solo exhibition where I return to Milan after a long time, and it’s a triple commitment: three galleries, three cities, three different chapters of one large exhibition,” says Pancrazzi.

The city observed by trees

The title, which in Latin means “a city from trees,” reverses the perspective: no longer humans observing nature, but plants observing and judging the city. Patient and rooted, they do not abandon the urban space but remain ready to reaffirm their vital force against the stillness of architecture.

“I like to think that nature observes us, humans, as the invaders of a natural environment: it watches us, tolerates us, but can also reclaim its dominance,” says the artist.

Pancrazzi further writes: “I like to think that we are being watched and tolerated by the plants surrounding us, and that they are our only—though not merely symbolic—hope of finding a more natural path to existence.”

Three types of works

The exhibition unfolds through three main groups of works.

The monochromes on raw canvas, described by the artist as “whites,” follow a minimal rule and develop like natural growth—random, chaotic, yet harmonious.

The large works on paper, more recent, arise from layers of color and embrace accidents and errors as an integral part of the creative process: serial works, scattered throughout the studio to dry and settle, open to infinite possibilities.

The small-format works represent an intermediate ground, a meeting point between paper and canvas, featuring experimental and unexpected solutions.

“I have almost completely eliminated color, using only raw canvas—a natural color, a non-color. On this surface, I work with white glazes, which is the only element that allows me to define an image,” explains Pancrazzi.

Landscape as threshold

The theme of the landscape lies at the heart of Pancrazzi’s research, understood as a threshold between nature and construction, perception and memory. Coming from regions where even the wild has been tamed and channeled, the artist observes how what we call “natural” has long ceased to be so, being the result of cultivation, infrastructure, and artificial layering. Yet, it is precisely the vitality of vegetation—capable of growth, accumulation, and transformation—that points to the possibility of resistance and of reimagining future cities.