All Things, Great, Small, Invisible
It wasn’t until the early Renaissance that the Western art tradition found the means to envision the unimaginable and make the impossible feel vivid and real. Since this imaginative breakthrough, metaphysical painting emerged as an exploration of reality beyond the physical or material world. In that way, the discoveries of Piero della Francesca, Giotto, and others laid the foundations for Surrealism, Pittura Metafisica, or any work that conveys a sense of stillness, a dreamlike atmosphere, and an uncanny clash of elements suggesting deeper philosophical or existential questions. Also conveying a distinct absence of time or place, Siro Cugusi’s (1980, Italy) practice engages with themes of mystery or the unseen forces shaping our perception and existence, and Valerius Gallery presents a cohesive selection of works that blend the mundane with the dreamlike, proposing a familiar yet peculiar and uncanny world.
At first glance, the depicted scenes feel strongly associated with symbolism, appearing as an archaic or primordial form of visual storytelling. However, Cugusi is not interested in the narratives or messages the imagery could convey. More concerned with their evocative essence, they harness the ability of painting to possess its own logic that doesn’t obey the constraints of physical reality. Through compositions and ways of arranging disparate elements, he is a choreographer who considers forms' ornamental quality, symbolism, perspectives, scale, ways of rendition, and relationship. Therefore, the visuals might appear as esoteric, not in the sense that a chosen few can decipher them, but that they purposely don’t fit within the constraints of the ordinary reasoning process. To achieve this, the varied historical influences are synthesized into a distinct vocabulary and language—the strong ambiance of Medieval or Reinassance metaphysics, the Rousseau-like layout of the perspective and depth in an almost staged, theatrical, lush environment, and the insisting on still life-like arrangements of various forms.
Working without a strictly planned structure, the work stems from the countless drawings that employ immediacy and directness to tap into the subconscious. The paintings are developed as a continuation, reflection, or further exploration of those drawings. They’re not treated as blueprints but merely as a glimpse of the finished work, utilizing the same thoughts, feelings, and urge to make that image. Stepping into the painting sphere, Cugusi utilizes the particular qualities of the medium while improvising with the formal qualities of the image. The somewhat slower phase of applying, handling, removing the paint, and waiting for it to dry directly affects the artist’s relationship with specific sections, elements, or decisions. The entire process is a journey of discovery, a way of giving meaning to findings and making connections between elements or how they’re presented. This ranges from playing with the scale or stylizing them, devising basic organic, occult-like shapes, to using paint’s materiality and viscosity to forge entirely abstract manifestations. It’s an alchemic process of creating, transforming, or transmuting the material into a new entity with distinctive qualities while being directly influenced and guided by pure instinct, affinity, character, or soul.
And the fact that many scenes appear as garden views isn’t coincidental either. From the Garden of Eden, the Persian or Zen garden, such grounds have deep and varied symbolic meanings across cultures, religions, and artistic traditions. Revolving around the universal themes of creation, fertility, transformation, learning, discovery, and the human condition, they aren’t far from Cugusi’s primary objective—pulling the viewer inside his painting and letting them find their way out of it or get lost in it. Because of that, they are not autonomous images but sections of a parallel world in which elements coexist in a non-rational space. They use invention and construction to create a new system of logic and meaning that can only exist within their boundaries, free from the physical world's limitations and common sense.
Working between physical and non-physical realities, Cugusi employs a universal, all-encompassing perspective, referring to everything in existence, regardless of the size or even visibility, both physical and non-physical. And although working with a seemingly eclectic selection of forms, images, and elements, there is a discernible connecting line between the microscopic, the cosmic, and the immaterial that emphasize each other’s evocative weight. From minuscule insects, over mushrooms and owls to stylized crystal-like shapes or golden spirals evoking anything from shells to galaxies, hurricanes, or DNA, Cugusi’s work taps into the virtually incomprehensible subjects of infinity, expansion, and organic growth—All Things, Great, Small, Invisible.
- Saša Bogojev
Siro Cugusi: a painterly escape from reality
Until 29 March, Valerius Gallery in Luxembourg City presents a solo exhibition that delves into the poetic and mysterious universe of Italian artist Siro Cugusi. His work moves within the twilight zone between dream and reality, where the figurative and the abstract meet. Cugusi’s oil paintings evoke utopian landscapes that seem unbound by earthly laws: geometric structures and human and animal forms overlap, botanical elements float in intangible spaces, and perspectives shift as if gravity momentarily loosens its grip.
Cugusi creates non-existent, parallel threshold spaces that seem to clash with conventional logic. His paintings appear to exist just beyond our comprehension, as if they only emerge in the periphery of our consciousness. This elicits an uncanny sense of estrangement, yet also one of wonder. The exhibition title, 'All Things Great, Small, Invisible', reflects the way in which Cugusi brings together the vast and the minute, the tangible and the unseen.
His work exudes a deep connection to the surreal and the metaphysical — that which lies beyond the physical, tangible world and explores the fundamental nature of reality, existence and perception. In art history, the metaphysical is most often associated with Pittura Metafisica, the early 20th-century movement pioneered by Giorgio de Chirico.
Cugusi’s painting balances between past and present. While his technique and visual language recall classical traditions from surrealism and the early Renaissance, he merges them with a contemporary, intuitive approach that is more associative than narrative. This results in a painterly space where elements unfold like memories: fragmentary, poetic and without a fixed structure. His works raise profound philosophical and existential questions: What do we truly see? And how do unseen forces shape our perception of reality?
Cugusi’s symbolically layered compositions seem infused with hidden meanings — messages that do not immediately reveal themselves. Motifs such as spirals, crystals, plants and animals reference the cosmic interconnectedness of all things, suggesting a world in which the microcosmic and the macrocosmic continuously reflect one another. His recent work plays with the idea of the garden as a symbolic space. From the Garden of Eden to a Japanese Zen garden, gardens have long been places of contemplation, transformation, fertility and discovery. These environments, filled with flowers, mushrooms, faceted pyramids, owls, and fruit split open to reveal deep red interiors, appear in Cugusi’s paintings as realms both familiar and elusive — like fragments of a forgotten myth or a dream that remains just beyond reach. His paintings function as meditative spaces, inviting the viewer to momentarily lose themselves and step away from rational thought.
Cugusi typically works without a fixed plan; his paintings emerge from sketches, photographs and notes, drawing on intuition and the subconscious. Rather than serving as detailed preparatory studies, his drawings act as initial impulses that further evolve on the canvas. His process is one of continuous experimentation and refinement, utilising the properties of paint to construct layered compositions. Through the application, removal and reworking of paint, structures emerge that undergo not only a visual but also a material transformation — an almost alchemical process in which instinct and emotion take precedence. His colour palette, where warm earth tones and deep greens contrast with vivid accents, enhances the illusion of a timeless and mythical world.
Siro Cugusi was born on Sardinia in 1980. He studied painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Sassari before moving to Paris. Today, the Sardinian painter once again lives and works on his home island. Last year, his work was featured in a solo exhibition at Museo Nivola in Orani and it has previously been exhibited in galleries in Los Angeles, London, Copenhagen, Madrid, New York, Naples and Munich.
Flor Linckens
Gallery Viewer Magazine, 04 march 2025
Chimères
Oeuvres composites, exécution parfaite. Siro Cugusi et son univers à la galerie Valerius. Une première à Luxembourg
Dans la précédente exposition à la Valerius Gallery, on avait vu de Siro Cugusi un vase rappelant les porcelaines hollandaises, au bouquet opulent, sur fond rose. Du classicisme, objet centré et technique « à l’ancienne » , dans un pot-pourri entièrement consacré aux fleurs. Son tableau, attirait le regard parmi des œuvres pour la majorité à l’expression beaucoup plus contemporaine, qu’elles soient figuratives ou abstraites.
Fascinés par le sujet et l’art du peintre, Lou Philipps et Gérard Valerius ont contacté Siro Cugusi et, a contrario de beaucoup d’expositions qu’il faut planifier longtemps à l’avance, le peintre, qui vit en Sardaigne ( il y est né en 1980, a étudié à l’Accademia di Belle Arti de Sassani en Sicile), a immédiatement répondu d’accord. Voici donc sa première exposition monographique à Luxembourg : All things great, small, invisible.
La première chose qui frappe, c’est la dimension de la majorité des peintures. Des grandes, pour ne pas dire de très grandes huiles sur toile (jusqu’à 194,5 x 269 cm) étant donné les sujets : papillon, champignon, marguerite. Celle-ci est parmi les grandes œuvres, la toile la plus récente (2022-2024), les autres datant de 2021-2022. On parle ici de la date d’achèvement, car certaines ont pris entre deux et cinq ans pour la réalisation.
Mais revenons aux sujets des tableaux. Nous intitulons cet article « Chimères », non pas pour les animaux maléfiques que les Anciens appelaient ainsi, mais au sens des connaissances pas encore dévoilées dont la gardienne était la déesse Athéna. Il fallait, pour comprendre, développer un sens de la stratégie. Il le faut également pour comprendre la peinture de Siro Cugusi.
Ou plus exactement, plonger dans les connaissances de l’histoire de l’art, dont le titre, All things great, small, invisible, est en quelque sorte l’énigme à résoudre. Tout d’abord, il y a le jardin. C’est le décor dans lequel se jouent les scénarios des tableaux. Il est minutieusement exécuté et forme l’arrière-plan. C’est une interprétation tout à fait personnelle, mails il nous fait penser à la bordure habituellement d’avant-plan des tableaux de la Renaissance, avec leurs herbes, leurs petites fleurs, leurs fraises minuscules qui dessinent une bordure si fine… Dans ce jardin merveilleux, voici encore des éléments qui habituellement sont décoratifs : champignon, papillon, où ils font partie de natures mortes. On peut dire que Siso Cugasi en fait ici le portrait, bien réel. Et pourtant, c’est un monde imaginaire.
Inévitablement – mais on ne voulait pas en parler dès le début de l’article – on en vient à évoquer la chouette, présente dans tous les grands tableaux et qui bénéficie d’ailleurs d’un traitement particulier : Elle est représentée en tant que sujet unique sur un tableau qui semble veiller sur toute l’exposition. La chouette : animal mythique, aux vertus aussi bien maléfiques que bonnes. On ne retiendra ici que celles de la sagesse et du savoir. Et puis, il y a dans les compositions de Siro Cugusi des objets dont on a du mal à percer l’énigme : Ils ont la couleur rose de la chair humaine. Sont-ce des vulves, des seins ? On approche de la symbolique « méta »-physique du peintre.
On aura beau citer Jérôme Bosch, Piero della Francesca, la pittura metafisica d’un Giorgo De Chirico, le surréalisme d’un Magritte, on est ici sans l’univers de Siro Cugusi, « où toutes les choses sont grandes, petites, invisibles ». Ses œuvres les plus récentes nous touchent donc particulièrement. Car contrairement au côté spectaculaire et inévitablement attirant, séduisant des œuvres précédentes, trois moyens formats ne représentent « rien », sinon des paysages qui prévoient le monde qui vient. Comme si le peintre rompait avec les beaux exemples esthétiques. Voici un tronc d’arbre creux d’où s’échappe un surgeon maigre, l’océan agité, desseins devenus balises maritimes, le tout non plus dans des tonalités chaudes, mais verdâtres, presque froides.
Siro Cugusi est pourtant bien un « rejeton » de la grande peinture italienne : le tableau n’est pas grand (50 x 40 cm) et il fait penser à un de ces tout petits paysages que l’on voit au fond des grandes compositions de la peinture italienne classique, qu’elles soient d’ailleurs d’église ou civiles. Là où le peintre exprimait, hors sujet de la commande, tout son talent personnel, avec en plus un sfumato techniquement très élaboré, donnant l’impression d’un voile entre ombre et lumière. On peut l’évoquer ici dans le traitement de l’expression du ciel et des nuages qui assombrissent sa clarté.
Mais Siro Cugusi est un peintre contemporain, puisque ce « petit » paysage est le sujet même de son tableau. Roche et terre désertique, cyprès et oliviers qui souffrent. Ciel menaçant… L’histoire continue, en tout cas celle que nous imaginons : un paysage martyre, comme Saint-Sébastien transpercé de ses flèches. Nous sommes à notre époque.
Marianne Brausch
d'Lëtzebuerger Land du 14.03.2025