Eyes

Eyes. Pencil on paper, 10 x 10 cm, 1996. I've always been attracted by the eyes, and by the sensuality that comes from the attempt to represent their liquidity, transparency, shadows and shades of colors. Drawing the eyes is a simple exercise, but it lends itself to endless variations. On this subject I apply my obsession for decoration, and so I try to investigate what is the limit beyond which the subject of the drawing is no longer the eye, but the decoration itself. The small size allows me to combine a simple subject to a decoration exasperated. The choice of the eyes stems from the idea of the makeup, which is basically a form of decoration.

Yellow angel

Oil on canvas, 100 x 50 cm, 1993. 

Under the sun

 

Oil on canvas, 80 x 70 cm, 1992. 

The owl and the mouse

An original piece from the series “Ancient beasts”, oil and pencil on paper, 30 x 21 cm, 1990.

The medieval illustrators represented animals that they had never seen, described by others, or derived from mythology. This generated monstrous creatures. From here comes the idea of a common set of animals, which are deformed with the help of redundant decorative codes. To simulate the ancient miniatures, I use ink and uniform color areas.

The great beauty

 

Oil on thick paper, 26 x 36 cm, 2020. Original sold.

In my childhood memories there are often the sea and the beach, the sun and the summer. The idea of finding a hidden treasure, a secret sparkling, with a hint of unease, the thrill of joy and panic that arose when, going fishing with my cousins, a fish took the bait on the hook, and that was finally the terrifying moment when we had to kill with our own hands that living creature.

octopus

 

Oil on thick paper, 24 x 50 cm each one, 2020. Original paintings sold.

The fantastic world of animals. When I was a kid I went crazy for these small encyclopedias for children, where all the animal species were cataloged, and were represented with drawings rather than with images. Those drawings, although very detailed, left much to the imagination. It was as if some white space at the edges of the image were put there on purpose, to allow the viewer to complete, with the imagination, the work of describing that animal. Perhaps it is from this childhood passion that comes to me a certain obsession for animals, and a vice that leads me, starting from a detail or from a certain peculiarity, to exaggerate, to overstate the decorations and the colors, to allow the polyps to emit colored and psychedelic inks.

Virtual landscape

 

From the series “Virtual model”, oil and pencil on paper, 40 x 40 cm, 2020. ORIGINAL PAINTINGS SOLD.

I like to create imaginary worlds. Using the modeling software I invent virtual simplified realities, probably the result of travel memories and past experiences. I choose the types of buildings, I place them on a fictitious ground, check the colors to the various parts, the lights, the elements of the landscape. And then I choose a point of view and portray this place of fantasy. The traditional landscape painting has to deal with the atmospheric variables, with the mutability of natural light. Here, on the contrary, not only everything is static, but I can change the various elements at will: add or remove pieces, move something, try the effects of shadows depending on the movement of the lights. But it is a small difference, and also the difference between "real" reality and virtual reality is now small: it has become part of our daily lives, changed our way of perceiving, and somehow has itself become real.