AS THE MOON covered the sun, the sky went eerily black and filled with stars. “The seagulls went completely mad it was night at midday,” recalls Marco Magrini, who was visiting the north of France at the time to watch a solar eclipse. When the sun came back into view, cameras flashed, people clapped and then they all took off their disposable sunglasses and discarded them on the beach. The scene imprinted itself on Magrini’s mind, and the seashore strewn with sunglasses became a series of playful paintings named “Ray-Bans and Solar Eclipse,” in which fiery orange sunglasses are suspended on a sea-blue background.

Magrini’s work is always based on his own memories and personal impressions, with a large dose of imagination thrown in. His show, “Flying Carpets,” at Mashrabia Gallery displays the range of these inspirations, both real and imaginary, from acrobats to baboons.

“Every single piece is a different signification, a memory,” he says in eloquent English with hints of his native Italian seeping through. “Each is a personal story, never by chance.”

One painting on cloth that Magrini affectionately calls “The Man with the Sticks” is a self-portrait. It shows the silhouette of a man in motion, with four walking canes. The man’s stance is animated and happy, as if he’s on an exciting journey. It’s a fitting portrait of an artist who describes himself as a “nomad” and an “optimist.”

Magrini has traveled the world for the 40 years of his career finding beauty and wonder everywhere. “Life is not banal,” he insists. “There are a lot of incredible possibilities to see If you want, Paradise is here. It’s a question of point of view.” To Magrini, it’s a matter of recognizing the special moments in the ordinary and the everyday. Each scene is a potential treasure: a shadow, a bicycle, an abandoned car in a field. He distills the images down to simple motifs that appear in his art. The wheels of the old car become a semi-abstract, black motif painted on orange fabric.

While this show exclusively features paintings on cloth and paper, Magrini is also an accomplished sculptor and has used many of the same themes in both forms. He is fascinated by acrobats, whom he depicts in two dimensions as well as three. Magrini’s sculptures are powerful almost primal with their strong lines, while his paintings seem innocent and often playful.

To Magrini, acrobats symbolize the human condition’s constant oscillation between stability and instability, and the search for balance in life. “Everywhere, everyone is in this position, in this equilibrium, this precariousness,” says Magrini, whose painting “Ghosts, Four” shows four acrobats suspended in the air, their bodies fluidly crossing and touching so that it is difficult to tell where one begins and the other ends.

Baboons also have a special significance, and he always paints them at the corners of a rectangle, inspired by the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, in which baboons guard a pool of fiery water in the underworld. For Magrini, the scene represents “the point of fracture between life and death, this crucial point” that we will all experience.

History is rich with inspiration, and Magrini, who majored in classical studies (literature, Latin and ancient Greek) and art at the State University in Milan, is particularly fond of Mediterranean countries Egypt, Greece and Italy where the past and the present sit side by side.

“Egypt changed my point of view and my life,” he says. Since his first visit in 1982, Magrini has returned often and made many of his closest friends here. “Here in Egypt, for me it was like an explosion of life, because all around you, all the people are very lively with a special vitality,” he says.

Many of the bright colors Magrini loves are the ones he saw in the Aswan market during his first trip to Egypt. “The door to Africa this incredible market full of fabric for women. The majority was black and orange and yellow.”

He prefers these colors of happiness. “Gray is not my color I prefer the sun, not darkness. It’s a psychological confession,” he says.

For Magrini, art springs from seeing the possibilities around you and experiencing life rather than just thinking about it. He owns over 6,000 books at home in Italy, but they aren’t enough to inspire him. “Life is koshari with the people in Champollion [Street],” he says. “You can read a thousand books about koshari, but if you don’t eat the koshari with a spoon, it’s not real.”

That’s why he’ll never be the type of artist who remains isolated in his studio, and he’ll always be a nomad. “This is a beautiful adventure for an artist,” he says.