From the series “Memories paper”; oil and pencil on paper; 32.5 x 40.5 cm, 2013.
My father, when young, was fond of photography. He loved to develop the images on his own. A rudimentary darkroom was set up in a closet, where he experienced the effects of developing baths on the portraits of his children. These photographs, along with other photos of memories of grandparents, pictures of the period of the war, the marriage of my parents or my and my sister childhood, all of the summer holidays, and countless other occasions to remember, they are still part of the baggage of memories of my family, kept in an old cabinet. Their appeal lies in the irregularities, in the imperfections, in the grains of dust that soiled the film, in the overexposure burning the edges and merging all the objects in an indistinct white light, in the color fading due to the passage of time. I like to think that the paper possesses its own selective memory, which unveils some elements of the image while hides or removes others, staining only parts of the scene, while the rest is left in the second floor, in black and white. Or I like to think that the fading paper misses parts of that memory, and sometimes what remains seems not to be the most important thing.
These original paintings are available for sale at the price of 350 US$ each one or 690 US$ all together (including shipment). Contact me in case you are interested in more information about my work or the availability for work on graphics.
The Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach, invented the famous inkblots, to put into practice a therapeutic form in which a patient, observing these apparently indefinite forms, could create associations or interpretations, from which the analysis of the psychological disorders can begin. Often my work is criticized because it is too defined, too precise, too detailed. This accuracy would take away any possible action to the imagination of the observer. This reasoning has always made me smile a little, and each time reminds me of the Rorschach blots, which in reality were not indefinite, but on the contrary sharp and precise, and allowed to generate associations only because these associations are already inside the mind of the patient, or in general, of the observer. The interpretation of a work is not made possible by its indeterminacy. It depends only on the culture of the viewer, on the books he has read, on the films he has seen, on the paintings he has observed, and this generates his ability to see cross-references between things.
