One of the ends of the alchemical process is the transmutation of the physical body into a body of glory. In the old manuals the body is handed to scholars in the many troubled transformations it must undergo before reaching the final purification which, thanks to the philosopher's stone, will let it heal the corruption of matter.

The naked or clothed body is the protagonist of the metaphorical and linguistic references of that esoteric science. The naked bodies of the male and female elements join, immersed in the warm waters of the darkness around them.

Gilli's nudes and portraits draw on the great masters of the history of art. Their representation in sinuous lines and volumes of shadow reveals what the temperament of the bodies gives away and lays bare the faculties of their soul: they are portraits of friends, relatives and acquaintances, examined in their purity and reworked in their possibility of becoming the subject of a conscious transformation.