Anatomy’s studies

Oil and graphite on paper, 21 x 15 cm, 2009.

In some old manuals of anatomy I find very accurate and detailed illustrations that represent the different parts of the human body. The internal organs, the tissues, the degeneration provoked by disease are represented with extreme precision and detail. The color contrast is very strong to highlight all the details. Generally there is a prevalence of yellow and red. The images are fixed in crystalline stillness that deprives them of any sense of fear or disgust for what we are observing. On the contrary, the wealth of detail and fullness of the representation, if for one moment we can forget the subject they portray, can allow us to imagine a sort of sensuality. These artworks are made on paper overlaying subsequent layers of oil painting and pencil drawing (I often use graphite not only to emphasize the traits but as a color itself, to fill and darken entire areas of the drawing). The elongated shape of the paper allows me to imagine that these muscles, tendons and organic forms that I invented, are pulled or contracted, giving them a sense of softness or elasticity.

Flags

Oil and pencil on thick paper, 21 x 15 cm, 2008. 

Zuma!

"Zuma!!. Oil and pencil on thick paper, 40 x 40 cm, 2007 / 2008.

From the series “Proof sheets”, oil and pencil on paper, 40 x 40 cm each one. 

Before the advent of digital cameras it was a costly experience to develop photographs! Each of us did a lot of attention before taking a shot. The shops for printing images offered a service at an affordable price so it was possible to develop the miniatures of all the shots, then one was able to choose only the best and print to the correct size only those ones. They called it proof sheets. This was useful for me when I was photographing a specific subject: a building, a landscape, a person or a drawing. I took many pictures from various angles and changing the settings of aperture and shutter speed, but I knew that I would keep only the best. In these drawings I would apply the same procedure to my memories. I do not want and can not keep the memory of everything I see. It would be nice if I was able to decide what remains and what I can throw away.

Six birds in a pink sky

 

An original piece from the series “Point me at the sky!”, oil and pencil on paper, 35.5 x 24 cm, 2006.

When I was a young boy I danced like a madman following the tune of an old vinyl of my parents, "Point Me at the Sky" by Pink Floyd. I didn‘t understand the lyrics, I didn’t know that the song was about a pilot that crashes for a fault on his plane. I figured it was an exhortation to take the flight. In the bright contrast of the hot summer afternoons, I saw the black silhouettes of birds flying against the backdrop of a clear sky. I saw the leaves of the plants filtering the sunlight, and revealing the consistency of their veins and in some cases the shadow of a small frog, motionless, resting on them. To the tune of that song, watching some fish caught in a basin of zinc, I imagined them free and strong in their river, darting happily in the glow of the August sun.

plants

“Botany’s notebook”, oil and pencil on paper. 16 x 29 cm, 2005.

These are the plants that I grow on my balcony. I have a small balcony with a few pots of flowers, and these are the things I see more when I'm sitting at my desk, and every time I look up from the drawing I'm doing, out of the window, this is what I see. I get distracted, but the distraction brings me right back to the need to draw, so I take another piece of paper and try to sketch the plants, their colors, the shadows and the light reflections dancing on their leaves. When I go back to the work I was previously doing, a little bit of these sketches is transferred into it, and this tells me that my drawings (my thoughts), though apparently distant and very different from each other, talk, communicate and transmit the information all together.

 Ink drops number 2 and 3.

From the series “China’s drops”, oil and pencil on paper, 24 x 24 cm, 2002.

If you try to drip a drop of ink on a wet surface you can observe that it doesn’t spread evenly, diluting in water, but expands in a sudden and irregular way, causing streaks and branches that are oriented on the surface on the basis of the obstacles or impurities encountered, perhaps invisible. This generates a rich arabesque, a pure decoration that can vary from time to time, and that expands until it fills the entire surface.

Alphabet

SENTENCE NUMBER 16 and SENTENCE NUMBER 17. 

China ink on paper. 20 x 20 cm each one, 2001.

A barcode is the graphical representation of a series of numbers. What creates the aesthetics of a barcode? It comes from lines, their thickness, the spacing. We can think of it as a language with its composition rules, its grammar and its syntax. I imagined isolating these rules, separating them from the original purpose for which they were created, and I tried to change them gradually to invent a new language and perhaps new meanings.