Verso il Cielo is a large-scale public installation situated in a secluded field in the province of Umbertide, Umbria. Conceived during Mathison’s residency at La Foce in 2025, the work responds to the tranquility of the space and its sense of connection to the sky. Hidden from view except from above, the field revealed itself as a protected and contemplative site, evoking the feeling of a portal or threshold.

The work takes shape through an interplay of geology and atmosphere. A familiar fan-shaped cobblestone pattern is reimagined in a series of square travertine columns that seem to rise from the earth, as if drawn upwards. Each column functions like a cutout of the ground itself – mirrored and elevated.

For Mathison, who grew up in Zimbabwe – a place where stone carries deep architectural and spiritual meaning – the installation offers a quiet reflection on how cultural artefact can be shaped by the resources found on site. While the fan-shaped cobblestone pattern is most often linked to European civic infrastructure, its formal clarity and rhythmic logic find echoes in African traditions of stonework, from the dry-stone walls of Great Zimbabwe to the radial structures of rural homesteads.

It’s also an expression of the artist’s connection to his early childhood playing on the piazzas of Rome and then encountering the same pattern through legacies of colonial architectural aspirations.

By lifting this familiar ground-level motif into a sculptural form (and situating it in a region rich with Etruscan, Roman, and medieval histories) Mathison creates a dialogue between geographies, temporalities, and worldviews. The fan becomes more than a design feature; it invites us to reflect on how the built environment holds memory, and how notions of belief, power, and identity can be traced through the very arrangement of space.

Verso il Cielo continues a thread in Mathison’s wider practice: the reimagining of everyday or utilitarian forms into gestures that carry emotional and symbolic weight. In this work, stone is both grounding and aspirational; rooted in the earth, yet drawn upward, quietly bridging the space between ground and sky.