A bearded face of white wool, with two protruding eyes made of shiny ceramic, suspended in midair, looks at us. An anomalous and “hyper” “half” “tà” “physikà” statue (translated from Greek, “higher and beyond physics”).

Two “clairvoyants,” De Chirico and Carrà, who met in a psychiatric hospital in Ferrara a hundred years ago, had chosen the name “metaphysics” to indicate a precise philosophical reference to Aristotle and that part of ancient Greek thought that describes a reality that transcends that immediately knowable to the senses.

De Chirico posited that dreams transcend the neurological functions tied to space, time, and causality, capturing a truer reality. For him, The delivery of a sense of surprise and the achievement of a non-contingent reality are the purpose of art. For Carrà, art is above all a search for pure formal values, similarly to Cézanne’s quest with volumes. Just like in Italian paintings between the 14th and 15th century, independent of any descriptiveness or narrativity, with Antonello from Messina and his ability of direct attention to the most mysterious of details.

All the above echoes throughout this Sicilian exhibition. An “excess” of metaphysics is condensed in the last works of La Vaccara. Empty landscapes, the geometry of buildings, and nature which drive a disoriented viewer to feel nowhere, and thus, in all places at once.

The works we observe here are symbolic, just like the large deer that welcomes us to the exhibit. The loss of its antlers that miraculously regenerate in the spring has often been associated with the resurrection of Christ. The continuous renewal of life, the process of death and rebirth. The falling and being reborn with a new branching, the increase of strength with age. Depicted next to the Buddha, who was said to have re-fleshed in a previous life in the form of a golden deer. A graceful and elegant animal also connected to the chemical mercury, which acts as an intermediary with the psychic substance, a bridge between the conscious and the unconscious, providing us with the extraordinary possibility of illuminating the interior and allowing the deep Self to manifest itself in evidence (in a clear and illuminating way), in maturity (through wisdom and the strength of ideas), and in the ability to concretize the invisible in an open way (presented fully to the naked eye).

The works are presences, like the terracotta head, which observe us, change, and insert new stories in our mouths and new reflections in our minds, stories of other faces seen in a mirror.

The works are a “medium”, they are a vehicle, like this van, a light sculpture in paper and wood, which hovers over our heads.

A reversed perspective, a detail, an object, a shadow out of place, an intimate journey that the viewer travels alone, in search of themselves.