Giusi Sferruggia's Painting Ritual Explored in Palermo Solo Show

Giusi Sferruggia, born 1992, recently presented her solo exhibition 'Eco di una fuga leggera' at MARTHA – Music ART House Academy in Palermo, curated by Martina Martire and Vito Chiaramonte. The exhibition featured 17 works, originally planned as more, displayed in a distinctive early 20th-century apartment space that combines musical and artistic elements rather than a conventional white cube. Sferruggia's practice involves a ritualistic preparation where she meditates and physically rehearses brushstrokes before painting, treating the canvas as a structural component rather than just a receptive surface. She began working with watercolors on raw canvases in 2021 out of material necessity, discovering a 'fast' painting method that revealed new dynamics. Her artistic research connects to environmental crisis as a reflection of social structures, viewing painting as an investigation of relationships between matter and void. Works like 'Macchia mediterranea' (2025, watercolor on canvas, 179 x 213 cm) can take ten days or more, while others like 'arancio blu' might require only two to three hours. The artist maintains a home studio with southwest orientation that provides constant natural light. Her earlier work includes sculpture from 2019 and fabric pigmentation from 2020, both informing her current bodily approach to painting. Photographer Sergio Zavattieri documented the exhibition.