I was born in 1971 in Turin, Italy, where I live and work as an artist. Since I can remember I have always drawn. My preferred techniques are classic oil on canvas paintings, and pencil drawings.
I’m like a mouse in its box. A little mouse safe in its shelter, that passes his time gnawing the food stored for the winter. But my food are the drawings. I work within my home. My studio is a room of the house in which I live. In this relatively small space are accumulated all the materials and equipment I need to draw and paint, but in a certain sense also the suggestions that inspire my work. Here are the desks and drawing boards, with brushes and paint colors, but also, on the walls or placed in closets, paintings and drawings (I think each finished work is always an inspiration for the next, in somehow). A great source of ideas are books and music, and of course the PC. The graphics programs and virtual modeling programs have become over the years a valuable support, but obviously the richest mine is the internet: a reservoir of images and ideas from which to draw, and in which we often are lost (in addition to photos of my own travels, all stored on the computer). It’s a small microcosm closed in on itself, rather impervious to the outside world (despite a large window with a beautiful view of Turin, almost always I work with the curtains closed). It is a bit as if the suggestions of the real world were allowed to enter here only after being filtered and digested, only after it has been already turned into experience. Exactly like a rat, eating quiet its supplies in its den, waiting for the end of winter.
In my artistic research I've always been attracted to all that is sortable, classifiable. Perhaps this attitude stems from a primordial insecurity, and perhaps the illusion of putting order into chaos eases this concern.
To start this game is sufficient to identify a subject that lends itself to variations, and the game consists precisely in identifying the rules that form the basis of possible changes. It’s a little like discovering a new language and trying to decipher the syntax, grammar, exceptions.
With these assumptions, it is easy to see that the subjects of this research can be the most different and in fact my designs ranging from butterfly collections to herbaria, from ancient bestiaries to manuals of anatomy, maps, human faces, hands, pornography, flags ... They are all languages having their own vocabulary, and my attempt is to isolate it and reinvent it, trying to generate new meanings.
Consider for example a road map or a map. They are born with a practical, precise purpose. Some graphic conventions, signs, symbols are chosen to represent on paper all the information that the map must contain. This at the end generates an aesthetics. What happens if I isolate this technique of representation from the purpose for which it was created and alter the rules that govern it? Does it continue to convey meaning? This meaning will be new and unexpected? Or for the reader this will be meaningless, as an unknown language?
My favorite painting techniques are oil paint on paper or canvas and graphite drawing. In general the work proceeds by sedimentation of successive layers, each layer adds something new, but at the same time covers something of the underlying layer.
I have sold my works on several online galleries (saatchiart.com, zatista.com, artfinder.com, etsy.com, redbubble.com, teepublic.com, cupick.com, society6.com, ebay.com). Each painting is finished with a coat of UV varnish to protect against sunlight and dust. The canvases are painted on the sides too, so they are ready to hang. My sold works are never rolled but always packed flat. I put them between two sheets of acid free paper with paper or cardboard protection for the corners, than close in a plastic envelope. The envelope is stiffen with a sheet of polystyrene on both sides, and the whole thing is completed with layers of cardboard. The package is also protected with bubble packaging inside. When sold, the artwork is shipped in 2/3 days after receiving the payment. All my artworks are original unique paintings, signed. The certificate of Authenticity is always included.
Projects
- ReticulumInk on thick paper and oil on thick paper, 2003 / 2021. The origin of these paintings is very simple and is almost a game: I draw a grid and I deform it. Then I search for some decorative elements. With these elements I fill the crooked dowels of the grid. The dowels are all filled in the same way in a series of steps, until they are saturated with decoration. The initial deformation lead changes among the parts.
- Castles and stripesFrom the series “Virtual model”, oil on thick paper, various dimensions, 2023. I like to create imaginary worlds. 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 of 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 atmosph
- Botany’s notebookThese 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 wo
- The infinite cityIn the contemporary metropolis one can often get the impression that there is no end, edge, limit or border. The city seems to extend in all directions to the horizon, often with monotony and apparent alienating repetitions. However, for those who live in it, the infinite city is not only a source of stress and frustration, but it is often an exciting jungle, a continuous challenge full of possibilities and unpredictable opportunities. In the infinite city we become small and the fear of being c
- SwimmersImaginary portrait of boys floating on the water. The uncertainty of the image induces the viewer to think about a boy swimming in the sea as well as about a memory from a dream, where the base concept is the fusion among the subject and the environment, a deep unity between things, where boundaries disappear. Oil paintings on wood panel, 2023.
- Under the shadow of a treeoil on thick paper, 2022 - 2023. Let's imagine that we are lying down in a meadow on a bright spring day. At the foot of a tree the light filters through the leaves. Among the flashes that obscure the view and make us squint, the outlines of the branches, fronds and green blend and mix with the blue of the sky. The leaves crossed by the light are almost transparent, but their shadow falls upon us and protects us, instilling a sense of peace.
+ View all
Skills
- Oil Painter
- Graphite Pencil
- Abstract Art
- Architecture
- Interiors
- Illustrations
- Map Design
- Map Illustration
- Arts
- Contemporary Arts
Education
Bachelor of Architecture
Italy