The Fortilizio della Cittadella – Casa degli artisti Pisani is hosting the exhibition ‘In viaggio con gli stecchi di Pacini’ by Gianfranco Pacini, curated by Nicola Miceli.
Open from 16 April to 3 May 2026 at the following times:
Tuesday to Friday: 10 am - 1 pm and 4 pm - 7 pm
Saturday, Sunday and 1 May: 10 am - 7 pm
Free admission, including access to the Torre Guelfa.
The exhibition. The exhibition features over 30 works, including paintings, engravings and installations, offering a broad and representative overview of Gianfranco Pacini’s artistic practice, from his early experiments to his full artistic maturity. At the entrance, two large paintings dedicated to the theme of the sea introduce visitors to the artist’s aesthetic, with surfaces in which waves are transformed into geometric patterns. The exhibition includes works executed in acrylic on canvas, coloured engravings, compositions on panel and mixed media, as well as installations of strong visual impact. The exhibition presents works that bear witness to the various phases of his artistic development, including those linked to the practice of graffito, which the artist learned and reworked as an autonomous form of expression. A distinctive feature of the exhibition is the use of ‘sticks’, the small rods used in painting to mix colours, elevated to the status of subjects within the work and transformed by Pacini into genuine compositional elements. As an artistic sign, the sticks become protagonists of landscapes suspended between sky, sea and land. The works on display present a visual universe characterised by vibrant colours, in which natural elements (seas, skies, whales, landscapes) interact with more abstract and symbolic motifs.
The artist. Gianfranco Pacini,
born in Guamo (Lucca) in 1955, trained at the Art Institute of Lucca and the Academy of Fine Arts in Pisa, where he explored painting, printmaking and the plastic arts. From the late 1970s onwards, he had significant experiences in Latin America, including Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela, where he combined his artistic practice with agricultural work and sharing the life of rural communities. This human and cultural journey profoundly shaped his artistic vision, directing it towards a strong focus on social themes. After an initial phase devoted to pictorial research into landscape, the sea and graphic mark-making, in the mid-1990s he introduced ‘sticks’ into his work, which would become the hallmark of his artistic language. Since then, Pacini has developed a coherent body of work, exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad, which has consolidated an expressive style capable of combining technical experimentation with symbolic value.
