New Arrivals

Simone Pellegrini was born in Ancona, Italy in 1972, and now lives and works from his studio in Bologna. His career as an artist began en 1996, during his formative years in Urbino. Since 2003, he has held more than forty solo exhibitions. In the summer of 2023, an anthological exhibition dedicated to him is inaugurating in Lugano by MUSEC - Museo delle Culture.

Renaldo Kuhler (American, 1931-2013) was a scientific illustrator for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences for thirty years, illustrating natural history specimens for publications and exhibits. Unbeknownst to family, friends, and co-workers, Kuhler was also a prolific self-taught artist. In 1948 Kuhler invented an imaginary country he called Rocaterrania and secretly illustrated the nation’s history for more than sixty years.

The German artist, Freda Köhler produced a body of compelling visionary paintings and drawings, only a fraction of which seem to have survived. She signed her works, ‘Sieg-bert’, which in old German means ‘bright victory’; a sign of the revelatory messages in her art and, perhaps, the name of her spirit guide. The titles of many of the works, and the hand-written ‘explanatory’ text on the verso of some of them, certainly suggests a mediumistic source. Botanical forms dominate. They metamorphose and seemingly reveal cosmic messages.

Lydia is 79 years old and has had a lifelong struggle with schizophrenia. She has been institutionalised since 2004.

In 2020 she was encouraged to draw by her daughter Sally who noticed a notepad and some felt tips sitting on a nearby table. Sally perched the pad onto Lydia’s lap and invited her to choose a colour. She chose pink, studying the quality of how the pen felt in her hands for several minutes before removing the top and making her first mark.

Since then Lydia has produced a drawing every week.