Lost Civitas is a mixedmedia painting performed on unprimed cotton canvas, signed on the back by Alberto Ballocca himself.

This work portrays mental process of an ancient Egyptian architect when an idea takes new shape and becomes a mental model

An idea is an energy accumulation that appears in the back of the head, is elaborated by the artist who is able to transport it in front of his eyes, and vanishes into a timeless dimension and suddenly becomes a new form, shape and a new way of thinking about something. What is lost is not an idea, because “lost”, is only reliable in terms of time.

Spheres in the upper part of the composition identify an imaginary temporal dimension composed of past, present and future and represent timeless mental paths of an ancient architect that manifested in the plan of an ancient city such as the one inside the subject’s face that is inspired by the powerful athmosphere of the ancient Egyptian iconography.

Civitas, the Latin word for city, refers to the Metropolitan city of Turin.