Once at the studio, Theo showed me his current body of work, which he was preparing for a show in Vienna in April 2026. It was those “sacred” paintings he had spoken about on the phone, and I was mesmerised by the shapes that felt both human and alien at the same time. After a coffee (Theo loves coffee), we started working. He mixed paint, and I set up the tripod at a comfortable height. On today’s schedule was a painting that would soon be titled Sacred Study, green (and even turned into the edition you can find below). I watched how Theo seamlessly blended paint into an already existing fabric of colour and texture, and he shared how important composition and speed are for him. If something felt out of balance, he would not stop until it was corrected. For him, a balanced painting reflects a balance within our own systems, both in the body and collectively—if one force dominates another, something collapses, like a struggle within cells.

Theo does not work from memory or imagination but predominantly with pre-created imagery, based on drawings he reworks, imports into Photoshop and develops digitally until satisfied. This process evolved after realising that going straight onto the canvas often left him disappointed, while working only digitally felt “stupid.” So now he composes mostly in Photoshop but leaves space for experimentation and chance on the canvas itself. Sometimes it flows effortlessly, especially when he reaches the flow state he speaks highly of, because for Theo, in that state of creation, lies a forgotten treasure of human existence. “Creation itself is sacred. Being in flow is sacred,” the painter tells me repeatedly throughout the day.

In another painting that would become Post Apocalypse II, I could watch Theo apply the second layer. What looked like liquid fire in the first layer was slowly covered by silhouettes of red figures. Each layer takes time and focus, as for Theo, every stage could potentially be the final painting. He would even want each layer to exist as its own artwork. Within each layer, he also learns something about what the painting wants to become, until he is ready for the final one. There is no recipe, only trying, waiting, and the moment when joy appears, and the image reveals itself. The creation of human figures feels to him like the creation of life itself, a statement I found deeply beautiful. We ended the day with dinner with one of his studio mates, and the next morning I was back on the road towards Turin. Business as usual.