PLANET 2, CIELO
Solo Exhibition by Lucia Ausilio
29 January – 29 March 2026
Palazzo Caracciolo Naples, Hilton-affiliate
Vernissage: 29 January, 6:30 pm
From 29 January to 29 March, Hotel Palazzo Caracciolo Naples, Hilton-affiliate, hosts "Planet 2, Cielo", the new chapter of Lucia Ausilio’s exhibition project Planet, curated by Alessandra Pacelli.
Following its first presentation at the Reggia di Caserta, Planet 2 arrives in the historic spaces of Palazzo Caracciolo Naples, giving rise to an unprecedented dialogue between contemporary art, architecture and the memory of place. Here, Lucia Ausilio continues her exploration of the relationship between human beings and nature, celebrating the joy of living and the balance of the ecosystem through a poetic and deeply symbolic visual language. The works invite viewers to look beyond the visible, opening up a space for intimate and universal reflection, where matter, light and spirituality intertwine in a renewed osmosis with the universe.
Exhibition Concept
In "Planet 2, Cielo", Lucia Ausilio weaves together nature, humanity and the sacred dimension in a visceral and contemplative dialogue. Powerful images evoke the indissoluble bond between earth and sky, between materiality and transcendence.
The works engage in a constant dialogue with their surroundings, transforming the exhibition space into a living organism animated by a shared, choral tension. Paintings depicting insects and small creatures celebrate the vitality of existence and the fragile balance of the ecosystem, reminding humankind of its condition as a temporary guest on the planet. Through sculpture, painting and light, Ausilio invites a conscious, unhurried gaze—one capable of grasping the poetic connections that unite every form of life with the universe.
The Artist
Lucia Ausilio was born in Naples and lives and works in Pozzuoli.
Her background is articulated and multidisciplinary: she has worked as a conservator, designs jewelry, works with painting, sculpture, and video, and is also a yoga teacher. In the mid-1980s she was part of the IdraDuarte group. Throughout her life, she has lived and worked in France, the United States, and India—experiences that have profoundly shaped her artistic and spiritual path. Across all areas of her practice, Lucia Ausilio investigates the deep relationship between human beings and nature, recognizing art as a space of connection and awareness. Her entire body of work converges in the Planet project, conceived as an artistic and philosophical vision of an interconnected world.
Curatorial Text – by Alessandra Pacelli
I am tree, insect, leaf, cloud—an energy that carries forward the rituality of life.
Lucia Ausilio’s Planet offers the narrative of a powerful, spiritual nature. Following the monumental installation at the Royal Palace of Caserta, the exhibition arrives here for its second chapter. With Planet 2, Sky, the Neapolitan artist reveals her intimate and profound bond with planet Earth, a bond that transcends “gender” and embraces humans, animals, and plants within a single, interconnected family. It is a dialogue among living beings—but also stones, minerals, and every other element of the universe—that requires no words, spreading instead through spirituality. Ausilio’s artistic gesture thus becomes a conduit for a new and fertile way of inhabiting places and territories of which we are an integral part, like the breath, the vibration, the heartbeat of a single, magnificent world-lung. In a play of light refracting across metallic surfaces, paintings of insects appear, portrayed almost in a playful dance: flies, wasps, moths, beetles, and hornets—the outcasts of the earth—celebrate their joy of being in the world and their fundamental role within the chain of interrelations that sustains the balance of the universe. The paintings engage in dialogue with a series of sculptures depicting archaic-shaped heads, all gazing upward. Through them, the artist connects earth and sky, the human and the divine, bearing witness to the indissoluble union between materiality and spiritual ascent.