Leonardo Petrucci resided for a month and a half at Port Tonic Art Center and produced consistent number of new works thanks to the strongly inspiring place and the solitary location by the sea of this old shipyard.

The light also influenced the work during his stay as it is the typical very bright light of the French Coast during the day and a very dark and starry light in the night.

There isn’t any light pollution and stars can be seen clearly at night. This aspect has a major importance as Petrucci research focuses on alchemy and science but more on astronomy.

The result of the residence is a series of works coherently connected to his research but more than ever, deeply forged by the intense force of nature.

The first series is “Lazy eclipses”, an installation of ten small works representing the sequence of a moon eclipse obtained by a new and long (lazy) intervention by the artist on black paper on canvas.

The “Atmospheric sculptures” 01 and 02 are made from “Tonic” water plastic bottles deformed or we should say “sculpted” by the atmospheric overhang during the Rome-Nice flight to get to Port Tonic residency. The artist than used them to make concrete sculptures in a four-hand work of art with nature.

The “Fisherman”is a rope found in the hangar and embedded in hexagonal concrete, recalling the spiral as a symbol of infinity, just as the hexagon is a geometric shape that fills the space infinitely (like beehive), forever fixing a fundamental element to fishing in the matter, or an object that connects the sea with the sky.

The “Hyper Ammonite” site-specific is a 2m by 2m intervention. It consists of 16 shells sculptures made of Port Tonic concrete and sea water and positioned on the wall-drawing of a hypercube. The shells are painted with cephalopods ink. Each of them represents a spiral, the oldest symbol of infinity and liaison of man to God while they delimit the hypercube, an impossible cube as made of four dimensions and so that cannot be visualized by a human eye which has been grown in a tridimensional space. The works connects to a new approach to reality which contemplates the basis of quantum physics and philosophy.

The “Nugget” is a powerful sculpture made of basalt found stone in Port Tonic and a golden shell recalling the symbol of infinity. The artist action to sculpt the symbol and to embellish it with the most noble dress as gold, recalls the alchemist role in the research of the absolute truth and perfection. The golden Nugget represents the origin, or we should say the absolute truth, inaccessible to human knowledge. It is embedded in history, in a basalt stone, the oldest magmatic stone on earth that brings memory of our past.