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Geppy Pisanelli’s Hidden Lights offers a masterfully composed exploration of existential tension and visual paradox, inviting collectors to cross the threshold between the theatrical and the introspective.
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Geppy Pisanelli, Photo by Maria Elena Pero
For Italian visual artist Geppy Pisanelli, the act of painting is neither a decorative gesture nor a conceptual abstraction—it is an existential act. His recent solo exhibition, Hidden Lights, at GR gallery in New York, offered collectors a rare glimpse into a body of work where the boundary between external environment and inner consciousness collapses. Composed with calculated precision and executed with painterly finesse, Pisanelli’s works are what he calls “threshold images”—staged visual portals that beckon viewers into a suspended psychological terrain.
Pisanelli’s paintings unfold as dichotomies: nature versus artifice, shadow versus illumination, solitude versus community. In Hidden Lights, cascading waterfalls and beds of water coexist with stark man-made structures illuminated by cold artificial lights. “The exhibition’s oxymoronic title is a provocation,” Pisanelli explains. “Light is meant to reveal, yet here it is hidden—trapped within constructed geometries and artificial enclosures. It speaks to the modern condition: overlit and yet spiritually obscure.”
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Glowing Retreat, oil on linen, 45 x 37 x 1.5 inches, 2024
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Hidden light, oil on linen, 45 x 60 x1.5 inches, 2024
These theatrical landscapes are not incidental; they are composed with the deliberateness of a set designer. Pisanelli likens the experience of viewing his work to sitting before a stage, on the precipice between audience and performance. “The threshold,” he says, “is that invisible space between the viewer and the image, where both narrative and interpretation come alive. I want my paintings to suspend you there, between recognition and inquiry.”
Throughout Hidden Lights, viewers encounter recurring pictorial motifs—what he terms “minimum survival units”—tents, poles, ropes, sea rafts. These sparse, archetypal structures are more than scenery; they are visual symbols of humanity’s elemental endurance. “I don’t guide the viewer to conclusions,” he insists. “I build a space where conflicting ideas—abandonment and hope, community and isolation—can coexist. The viewer’s job is to wrestle with that ambiguity.”
Although the exhibition coincidentally resonates with D.H. Lawrence’s famous quote about building new hopes among ruins, Pisanelli resists labeling his art as literary. “Painting has its own language,” he says. “Lawrence’s words were a retrospective echo. My survival units emerged independently—but the correlation is haunting and affirming.”
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Mosaic of Lights, oil on linen, 45 x 37 x 1.5 inches, 2024
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Glimmers for the drift, oil on linen, 45 x 60 x 1.5 inches, 2022
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Luminous Dusk, oil on linen, 45 x 60 x 1.5 inches, 2023-24
His technical process is as layered as his themes. Beginning with pencil sketches, Pisanelli moves to refined large-scale drawings where light and shadow are carefully analyzed before paint ever touches canvas. “The challenge is always compositional,” he says. “Balancing the artificial and the organic, ensuring every element interacts meaningfully. It’s a slow process—some paintings evolve over years.”
But this meticulousness isn’t cold or removed. Pisanelli seeks to provoke emotional and intellectual responses, not merely aesthetic appreciation. “Art should raise questions,” he reflects. “It should inspire critical thinking and engage the viewer’s analytical faculties. In that way, aesthetics meet ethics.”
While his archetypes may appear deeply personal, they are meant to be universal. “These images belong to no specific culture,” Pisanelli says. “They are meant to resonate across latitudes and time, inviting the viewer into a shared contemplative experience.”
Warm Rock, oil on linen, 35 x 40 x 1.5 inches, 2024
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Detail, Vibrant Stillness, the unheard sinphony
The artist’s participation in GR gallery’s group exhibition Dreaming Awake was an engaging encounter, particularly in dialogue with fellow artists such as Dan Oliver and Mark Posey. Yet Pisanelli views Hidden Lights as an entirely independent project, conceived and developed on its own terms. If anything, Dreaming Awake served as a moment of thoughtful confrontation—an exchange that sharpened his awareness without defining the trajectory of his new work.
Dividing his time between Naples and New York, Pisanelli draws on the cultural riches of both worlds. “Naples gave me depth. Italian painting is my root system. But New York offers the opportunity to grow, to connect, to be challenged. One anchors me; the other propels me.”
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Vibrant Stillness, the unheard sinphony,
Oil on linen, 45 X 60 X 1.5 inches, 2024
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The signal and the blind,
oil on canvas, 79x67x2 inches, 2023
And what of contemporary resonance? With themes touching on migration, war, and climate change, does Pisanelli see his work as social commentary? “Perhaps,” he says carefully. “But the final interpretation belongs to the viewer. My role is to offer a space for inquiry. Some viewers have offered interpretations I never imagined—and that’s a triumph.”
In the end, Hidden Lights is a forum more than a gallery show. It’s a conceptual terrain where painting reclaims its power to unsettle, question, and illuminate—paradoxically—what we so often fail to see. “Yes, I want people to reflect on the human condition,” Pisanelli admits, “but I also want them to fall in love again with painting—with color, light, shadow, and form. With the magic of the medium itself.”