The Sign and the City | BUONENOVE
Luca Barcellona painted the exterior wall of the former dairy plant in San Marino in July 2025.

Arte pubblica per il castello di Acquaviva, nella Repubblica di San Marino.

LOST IN STROKES Project 2025: a skyline of calligraphic strokes.

The genesis of this abstract architecture took place at a very specific moment: after traveling extensively to teach calligraphy in the most disparate corners of the world, I found myself standing before a blank canvas with an array of writing implements—some of which I had never used precisely because of their size. Spatulas, handcrafted nibs, and brushes that I’d discovered along the way or that my students had gifted me. I then began to line up marks made with each tool, simply to hear their voices: each spoke a different language—some shouted, some whispered, and some screeched. And as I watched these simple strokes placed side by side, an urban landscape—a “skyline”—started to take shape almost on its own. All I had to do was move in the direction each instrument urged me.
From the first experiments, others followed, and the landscape became increasingly layered. The marks I’d memorized over the years—the ones used to form letters according to their ductus—began to emerge, detaching themselves from their original function, and solitary letters appeared, helping to create entirely new landscapes. One of the most recent and largest works in this series was recently exhibited at the MUDEC (Museum of Cultures) in Milan, as part of the group show Invasion.
“My skylines are essentially non-places and—for that very reason—anyone can see themselves in them and inhabit them with their eyes. The viewer can feel right at home, deciphering a language of intricate signs whose message is completed by their own gaze, ready to lose themselves among the strokes.”