LOOK UP – Rome, Italy 2023
Spanning nearly 400 square metres across the ceilings of the portico and lobby of CitizenM at Isola Tiberina, this large-scale hand-painted installation unfolds as a patchwork of ornamental textures and layered fragments. At its thresholds — the outer edges and the main entrance — technicolor pixel fields interrupt the surface, compressing the spectrum into both gradients and pure hues, a visual counterpoint to the surrounding patterns. Rectangular inserts then also resonate with the city itself: the golden tones of sunset, the undulating current of the Tevere, and the yellow ocher of burnt bread — a synthesis of gold and red long tied to Rome’s visual identity.

At its core, the work layers temporal echoes. MMXXIII (2023) — both the year of the mural and of the hotel’s new opening — appears in Roman numerals, set in a typeface recalling the 1970s, when the site’s original architecture first took shape. That same horizon also frames a nod to Mario Schifano, whose Pop sensibility in 1960s and ’70s Rome transformed mass imagery into cultural iconography. Further traces gesture back to the city’s legendary foundation, 753 BCE, binding contemporary gesture with ancient myth.