The Santa Maria della Scala Museum Complex in Siena hosts from November 14th, 2025 to January 11th, 2026 the exhibition Metamorphosis of the Sacred, the first institutional solo show of Teodora Axente, a Romanian artist among the most intense voices in contemporary European painting.

The exhibition project, radically site-specific, stems from an idea of the President of the Cristiano Leone Foundation, with the intention not only to juxtapose the contemporary with the historical heritage, but also to enhance the latter through operations specifically designed for the museum complex. The exhibition, realized in collaboration with the Rosenfeld Gallery in London, is curated by Riccardo Freddo and Michela Eremita.

Metamorphosis of the Sacred is an artistic project of 25 works conceived entirely for the Santa Maria della Scala: a crossing that unites centuries and sensibilities, where relics become evoked presences and the spiritual dimension is renewed through hybrid images.

Once a hospital and a place of welcome for pilgrims, the Santa Maria della Scala houses unique treasures such as the frescoes by Vecchietta (Lorenzo Di Pietro, 1410-1480, Siena), the veil of the Virgin, the nail of the Cross, and relics from Constantinople. It is within this fabric of signs that Teodora Axente's research is embedded, capable of transforming the spiritual and material heritage of Santa Maria into an imaginative atlas.

Listening to this place - where the artist spent time studying and admiring its wonders - her canvas installations are born, memories intertwine with frescoes, symbols, and liturgical objects to transform them into a visionary pictorial language. At the center, the theme of metamorphosis: birth, dissolution, elevation where the body becomes a fragile and sacred place, an incubator of the soul and a tool for healing, while everything is a trace of a passage from the earthly to the divine. Still lifes welcome objects once used within the hospital, such as bowls and bandages, containers and medical instruments, which become secular relics and traces of physical and spiritual care. The insect, the cocoon, the lily, the ladder, the chalice become archetypes of transformation, a call to the possibility of transfiguration. Alongside these motifs, the artist integrates specific elements such as the painted architectures in the large fresco cycles. The relics are symbolic presences within her compositions and the sacredness of the place intertwines with its original function of welcome and care.