Land and Water

Houses and squares, the foundation for social interaction, evoking an atmosphere that is intimate and yet at the same time open to dialogue and contact with the outside world: these form the conceptual essence of a large number works set in various Italian towns and cities, including Venice, Burano, Trento, Padua, Verona, Feltre, Milan, Riva del Garda, Bologna, Gubbio, Florence, Siena, Lucca, Pitigliano, Sorano, Loreto, Mantua, Vigevano and Parma. The first part of this website represents the final stage of a research project dating back to 1999 into historic urban centres, resulting in the sequences of paintings entitled "Dancing Houses", "Sky of Roofs" and "The Square". The aim of the research was to discover the soul of each town or city through close study of the houses, façades, doors and windows looking out onto its medieval heart. These buildings, impregnated with human moods, have preserved within the very fabric of their materials the stories and actions of the people who once lived there. They hark back to our roots, to an extremely fragile world that is in constant danger of disappearing. The use of the adjective "dancing" in the series "Dancing Houses" has not only joyful connotations, but can also refer to the macabre, as in the fascinating gothic frescoes in which Death appears in the midst of the festivities of knights and ladies, a reminder of the precarious nature of human existence. But these are above all houses "on the move", houses which long to fly, to dance their stories; houses that cling to the rock face and to time, like the tesserae of a refined mosaic.

This series of canvasses - which is still alive today, still being added to - is followed by other sequences of works set away from the towns, focussing instead on the open countryside, rural landscapes, small hamlets, isolated farmhouses and fishing villages, and bearing the titles "Sky of Fields", "Full Moon", "Earth" and "Water".

The website also contains a number of oil paintings belonging to a series entitled "Dreaming" which, like stills from a film, depict the intimacy of a couple at whose feet I have put extracts from Italian and foreign poetry, as if they were the captions in a poster. The playful intent here was to superimpose rationality and instinct, mind and body, in the same dimension, the same visual space.

Painting for me is like keeping a diary, a constant retelling of my life. I paint mostly on canvas or wood and, more recently, on pottery. I paint the things that appeal to me, that capture my imagination as I fly above the world in my vessel, I paint the things I love, as though I were writing my autobiography. Painting allows me to pursue dreams, to give life to the people and places I would like to touch, interact with. It is a simple and primary need for expression; a need to tell, to tell about myself. The series on historic centres and rural landscapes presents another trait: the presence-absence of people in the various canvasses. This is partly due to the fact that human stories are told exclusively through the use of colour, and partly due to the hope that in future man will truly deserve a place on this earth and will create a world which is happier, more hardworking, honest, clean, respectful and colourful.

I started painting as a child, and I am still a child in this respect. At the time, painting was, thanks to its technical simplicity, a good way of bringing to life solitary afternoons and long summers in the mountains. I still consider it the ideal form of expression for someone like me, because it takes shape in the here and now, emerging directly from within me, coming straight from the gut without any technical mediation which might filter or even condition the creative process. Moreover, the material support required is humble, but lasting. The "beauty" of painting lies in its power of communication, and I see a close connection between paintings and the universal nature of the message concealed behind the composition and the background colour. This is why, when I stand before a completed work that I consider emotionally positive, it gives me the feeling of déjà vu. For the observer, the canvas is a point of view, a window onto the world lying behind things and people. For me, the painter, it is a place in my mind; in fact it is my mind, my sky.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14