The work of Giuseppe Penone is as multifaceted and mysterious as the natural world from which he draws his genius. Through his handling of various media, he lifts a veil to expose the obscurities by which we are confounded and mesmerized in the world. He actively and successfully sought to investigate the intimate and daring space between art and nature. Since 1969, Penone has been one of the foremost figures of the Arte Povera movement, which emphasized a fundamental break with conventional artistic mediums. Penone selected organic material as his chosen medium and concentrated in particular on the qualities, both aesthetically and intrinsically, of the tree. The tree, like the human figure, grows vertically with expansive arms and a tall crown, however instead of walking freely the tree remains rooted to the earth. Trees have persisted as a central theme for Penone, inspired early on by the forests near his home in Turin, Italy and Idee di pietra represents a magnificent monument for the artist. The tree, expressive, and while not ambulatory certainly upwardly mobile, resists the mass of the stone, the idea of gravity, of the weight of the world. Penone has transformed his usual natural wooden support into one of bronze, mimicking the organic form with which he is most closely associated. The result is jarring and revelatory, expressive and contemplative, a perfect amalgamation of the conceits which have been driving the artist’s production since its inception.