Earth as an experience: Sophie Taricone at Stefano Paganini Restaurant

Starting from March 2026, the spaces of Ristorante Stefano Paganini host the new exhibition Earth as Experience by Sophie Taricone.

From March 2026, the spaces of Ristorante Stefano Paganini, within the Castle of Magliano Alfieri, host Earth as Experience, a solo exhibition by Sophie Taricone.

The project takes shape as a reflection on matter, understood not as an object of representation but as a field of passage. At the core of the research lies earth, not evoked iconographically but assumed as a physical presence and operative substance.

Matter as a place of relationship

Sophie Taricone’s work unfolds between painting and photography, yet finds its most radical core in the material dimension. In Earth as Experience, the surface is not a neutral support but a space of action: a territory where gesture and matter meet and transform one another.

The artist uses dry pigments and, at times, natural earths, privileging the direct use of the hands. This choice does not respond to a formal necessity, but to a precise methodological stance: the need to establish an immediate contact with the material, removing technical mediation and entrusting the body with the role of primary instrument of knowledge.

The process unfolds as a continuous dialogue between intention and the response of matter. The works retain traces, stratifications and sedimentations of gesture, making visible both the time of action and the resistance of the material. There is no descriptive intent: what emerges instead is a perception of place filtered through physical experience.

Touch and perception

In Taricone’s practice, touch assumes a central role. The observation of landscape or space does not end within the visual dimension, but translates into a bodily experience that precedes and guides formal elaboration. Pigments and earths recall the primordial dimension of matter, its density and its silent energy. The gesture does not impose a form, but constantly negotiates with the consistency of the material. The result is a surface that does not present itself as a finished image, but rather as an open perceptual field.

The viewer is invited to slow down, to linger, allowing the gaze to transform into listening. The vision is neither immediate nor narrative: it requires proximity and attention, activating a broader sensory relationship.

A dialogue with historical space

Placed within the Castle of Magliano Alfieri, the exhibition enters into a context strongly marked by historical stratification. The works engage with the ancient surfaces and the material memory of the place, generating a dialogue between the temporality of contemporary gesture and the sedimented time of the building.

Within this interplay, earth takes on a double meaning: original matter and trace of time. Earth as Experience thus becomes an investigation into presence, memory, and the possibility of restoring to matter a central perceptual role.