He studied at the Istituto d’Arte in Catania and the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. His early work was marked by an abstract phase between 1969, the year of his first group exhibition in Catania, and 1979, the year of his solo show at the Skema Center in Rome, featuring works suspended between abstraction and conceptualism, dominated by geometric-constructive elements. Pulvirenti held his first solo exhibition in Japan in 1973 – Tokyo, Himesi Gallery – a country with which he maintains a close relationship to this day. In 1975, he participated in the Rome Quadriennale.

Between the late 1970s and early 1980s, Pulvirenti moved towards figurative painting, producing a series of works exhibited between Italy and Japan from 1984 to 1990. In this period, his works were characterized by a strong material impact, inspired in part by De Chirico, incorporating elements of mystery and childhood memory that would become a constant in his practice.

Between 1991 and 1993, Pulvirenti held two major solo exhibitions in Rome: Giochi di Luna, giochi di sole, at the cultural association Il Polittico. The first show featured a layering of fixed elements, almost symbolic figures of the painter’s experiences, placed in an abstract space illuminated by daylight and nighttime light. The second exhibition explored the dialogue between interiors and landscape, where still lifes enriched by a sense of enigma opened towards multiple visual possibilities, resembling the symbolic path of a coded puzzle.

In the 1990s solo exhibitions (I fiori dell’infanzia, 1998, Ass. Culturale Maniero; Geometrie delle memorie, 1999, Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea, University of Rome “La Sapienza”), Pulvirenti combined his Sicilian heritage with traces of his Japanese experiences, drawing inspiration from the rationality of Japanese architecture and the essentiality of ikebana, integrating these elements through a geometric grid reminiscent of his abstract phase, connecting overlapping images like on a television or computer screen.

In 2010, for the solo exhibition L’enigma del sogno at Catanese Orizzonti gallery, the surface texture of Pulvirenti’s paintings formalized into an accumulation of moments tied to memory, also presenting a decorative elegance and aesthetic dialogue with Eastern compositional wisdom. Through additive processes, he emphasized the substance of his poetic vision, reminiscent of Sicilian confectionery craftsmanship.

Recent experiments include large-format works on Japanese paper with synthetic, almost calligraphic strokes, such as Miraggio (2016) presented in Rome at Bibliothè. In 2019, he exhibited “Il sapore delle foglie rosse” at the University of Molise curated by Lorenzo Canova. The latest installation at Museo Macro in Rome featured a work from Pulvirenti’s historical archive and his participation in a residency project at Museo Capitolino (2020). He also participated in the group exhibition “Se tutto è arte…50x50” curated by Roberto Gramiccia at Nuova Pesa, Rome. In 2022, he presented a series titled “Sotto il vulcano” at Kou Gallery, Rome, curated by Massimo Scaringella.