Curated by Antimo Pascale and Cristina Zecca – opening | Saturday, 28 November 2026 at 4 pm
duration | 28 November – 15 February 2026
The Kyro Art Gallery of Pietrasanta in collaboration with the Farmacia Semino of Traona is delighted to present Apotheca. La cura, a site specific artistic project by Fabrizio Sannicandro opening 28 November, 4 pm.
For the first time, the Farmacia Semino opens its doors to contemporary art, hosting an exhibition inspired by a desire to bring together different fields of knowledge and to explore new avenues for dialogue between fine art and the culture of care. The first floor rooms transform into a space for meeting and sharing, a space where the aesthetic experience intersects with everyday realities of personal care, recognition of others and attentiveness to the complexity of existence.
The title Apotheca – La cura evokes the very origins of the pharmacy as a place of conservation, knowledge and transformation of substances, but extends its meaning towards a broader dimension, where ‘care’ is not merely the treatment of the body but rather a way of seeing and thinking: the ability to pause, listen, understand and embrace that which cannot be reduced to an immediate definition.
At the heart of Fabrizio Sannicandro’s pictorial research are seated bodies, figures in a state of waiting, presences turned to one another as though they are at the threshold of an encounter or in the uncertain moment of an imminent parting. They are images that evoke suspended situations, in which the relationship unfolds without the conclusion of a complete narrative. The figures do not have a rigidly defined identity: they emerge from the surface through glazes, concentrated colours and undefined margins in a process of apparition that allows the recognisable and indeterminate to coexist.
Some parts of the body acquire density while others dissolve, blending into the background, where they seem to lose their boundaries and enter a state of mutual permeability. The painting does not explicitly define these presences, rather it captures their ever-changing nature open to transformation and encounter. It is within this instability that Apotheca. La cura finds its deepest meaning: the possibility of recognising fragility as an inherent aspect of human experience and our relationship with one another.
‘To care for’ instead requires the kind of attention that Sannicandro’s work continually elicits from the viewer. It means slowing down, pausing before the images, accepting that not everything is immediately knowable, and that each presence harbours an obscured area, something that resists classification and definitive understanding.
Those who gaze are thus invited to relinquish the pretence of possessing that which they observe, leaving the way open for a more patient and mindful experience. The intersection of art and pharmacy takes on a bilateral significance in this project. On the one side, a place historically dedicated to health and wellbeing, on the other, fine art that explores the body, perception and nature of relationships. Two seemingly disparate fields which discover they share a common need to focus attention on life, its transformations and vulnerabilities.
With Apotheca. La cura, the Kyro Art Gallery, Fabrizio Sannicandro, and the Farmacia Semino open a space where the art does not merely occupy a setting but expands on its symbolic and relational possibilities. It is an invitation therefore to rethink ‘care’ as an act that involves body and gaze coupled with the understanding and the willingness to allow oneself to be challenged by reality.
Fabrizio Sannicandro (Teramo, 1965) is an artist designer and lecturer of contemporary design at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Urbino.
Trained at the Liceo Artistico of Teramo and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna where he studied painting and where in these formative years, he developed a particular focus on drawing and line as tools for exploration, thought and the construction of the image. His subsequent experience at the Zio Feininger school of comics and illustration – where he was to come into contact with some of the key figures in contemporary Italian visual culture – further developed this direction: the narrative dimension of drawing, sequence and the relationship between figure and space were to become the elements of a language destined to inform his artistic research.
This provided the basis of a creative framework that spans painting, drawing, design and installations, yet maintains a profound coherence in mark, gesture and narrative construction. Human figures, animals and inner landscapes are the presences used to explore individual and collective memory, identity, time, relationships and the human condition. His paintings form a kind of ‘subordinate history’, made up of encounters, apparitions and silent traces in which everyday experience unfolds into a more profound and universal dimension. His major solo exhibitions include La sera della cena, a site-specific installation curated by Umberto Palestini, Vicolo Valdina, Chamber of Deputies, Rome (2026); People, Kyro Art Gallery, Pietrasanta, curated by Antonello Tolve (2026); La gravità degli angeli ubriachi, Palazzo De Thermes, Civitella del Tronto (2025); Arcani, Fondazione Crocetti, Rome (2022); Vite, Abbazia di Santa Maria di Propezzano (2021); Ama, Sala Ipogea, Teramo (2021).
Furthermore, he has participated in collective shows, exhibition projects and public artworks, including Intrecci, Fortezza di Civitella del Tronto, curated by Umberto Palestini (2026); Walking #5 – Image in the Space, Kyro Art Gallery, Pietrasanta (2025); D’oro e di terra, Loggiato del Belvedere, Giulianova (2023); Oneflag, public artwork at Teramo (2022); Upcycle. Quando l’arte reinventa il mondo, Italian Embassy in Bern (2022); and the project created for Aran for the Salone del Mobile, Milan (2011). He was a finalist for Mestre’s Premio Nazionale and Savona’s ArteAm Cup.
Alongside his artistic research, he has an extensive and consolidated experience in graphic design, editorial illustration and visual design, which he regards as areas closely linked to his fine art works and opportunities to experiment with line, image and the processes of visual communication. He has created illustrations for national newspapers and magazines including Il Manifesto, Il Gambero Rosso and Frigidaire, and has collaborated as graphic designer and creative consultant with international apparel brands such as Napapijri, The North Face, Adidas Italia and Armani. Experiences that have helped deepen his work based on the interplay between different languages and on the ability of design to cut across art, project, narration and communication.
His thinking on the design process has found its natural outlet in teaching. Sannicandro is a lecturer of contemporary design at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Urbino, where design is studied as a tool for observation, interpretation, planning and storytelling, as well as being an autonomous language of contemporary artistic research. His teaching and workshop activities focus on developing an awareness of the mark and the ability to use drawing as a process of understanding and construction of the image. In 2022 he also conducted graphic-pictorial workshops aimed at middle school students, dedicated to exploring and documenting the collection of the Melchiorre Delfico Library in Teramo.
Inauguration: Saturday 28th Novembre, 4 pm
Location: Farmacia Semino, Via Valeriana 82, Traona (SO)
Email: info@kyroartgallery.com | farmaciasemino@libero.it
Mobile: + 39 3341147775
Phone: +39 0342 652001
