There is a threshold, subtle and luminous, where matter transforms into language and gesture becomes meditation.
It is there that alchemical painting is born — an artistic practice that does not merely represent the visible world but seeks to transmute it.
An heir to ancient alchemy, this form of art does not pursue material gold, but a kind of inner gold: a balance between light and shadow, a form of knowledge that flows through color and matter.
The guiding principle of alchemy, solve et coagula — dissolve and recompose — finds in painting its most tangible metaphor: pigments that dissolve and merge, layers that emerge and fade, the hand guided by an intuition older than reason. Every gesture becomes a form of contemplation; every surface, a map of the soul.
Today, in a time that demands ever more speed and control, alchemical painting invites slowness, surrender, and listening.
It is a way of painting that asks us to pause, breathe, and observe how matter reacts and speaks.
And for this very reason, it is an art profoundly contemporary.
The Workshop in Florence with Polina Stepanova
For those wishing to explore this language, Pineider hosts in its Florentine boutique an Alchemical Painting Workshop led by Polina Stepanova, artist and lecturer at Polimoda, renowned for her visual and symbolic research into the relationship between gesture, energy, and transformation.
Within the elegant spaces of Lungarno degli Acciaiuoli, the workshop becomes a true creative ritual.
After an introductory performance, Polina guides participants through exercises of exploration and practice, alternating moments of intuition and technique, experimentation and listening.
Each session takes shape around a thematic palette inspired by the four elements — earth, water, air, and fire — or by specific astrological events, so that color is never merely aesthetic but a living symbol.
Participants work with fine pigments, papers, and inks selected by Pineider, giving life to abstract, intense, and often unexpected compositions.
The result is not a simple artwork, but the reflection of a journey — a silent conversation between self and matter.
An Experience of Art, Symbol, and Introspection
To take part in an alchemical painting workshop is to abandon the logic of outcome and rediscover the value of process.
It is an experience that unites technique and introspection, where the artist becomes both observer and instrument of their own work.
In this sense, the workshop organized by Pineider is not merely an opportunity to learn an artistic technique, but an invitation to rediscover the meaning of gesture, of error, of waiting.
In every brushstroke lies a possibility of transformation; in every shade, a fragment of silence.
Click HERE to learn more about our workshop.