A LESSON IN BLUE

I paint outside the lines. I live in a forest secured atop the hills of Salerno in Italy.
A choice I made when I felt suffocated by the mechanisms devised for art by the market and the critics, when they started to lavishly praise pointless works that had been created to flatter a society that was unraveling, shamelessly, without a future or prospects.
I love my work as an artist. I love playing with shapes and colors. I conjugate them into a kaleidoscope of variations that represent feelings, passions, love. I use and abuse color. I like exploring the potential of a single tone that, through imperceptible gradations, turns into living matter. Color takes on a body and defines spaces, people, and surfaces. Every time it’s a challenge. A creative force that is born from the difficulty of getting myself back in the game.
What a strange path I’ve taken. To imbue myself with art, with stimulation, I never sought out contact with official exhibits. On the contrary, I order myself to ignore them. And when I feel the need to recharge my batteries, I take refuge with a girlfriend who, while she slakes my thirst for knowledge, enchants and bewitches me. She’s an island that (in summer) is trampled by thousands of people, and later abandoned, often defrauded (like every corner of the Earth, only more so), and tucked into the bed of the Mediterranean: Sardinia.
From the start I was inebriated by the colors of its coastline. Then I fused my spirit with the strongest parts of it: its cliffs, its thrilling scent, its extravagant variety of sensations. Like a seer I start to dialogue with the wind, the sea, the cliffs.
In Sardinia I became a student again and I captured the density of its colors, the clear strong presence of the great rocks that soon became my girlfriends and lovers. And she, Sardinia, the great teacher that allows me to believe that many things are born inside of me, as in the most imaginative and remote abstract paintings. This is where I come when I wish to delve into a mystery and unfailingly I find the answer. Always. In Sardinia my passion was born for bright red, violet, turquoise, yellow, and the desire to put myself to the test with monochromatic canvases. Now I feel the need to refresh my palette and I plunge into a euphoric exercise: a lesson in blue.
I don’t speak, I don’t dare to speak: I listen. The call of the night and the mistral wind take me away, the breeze cuddles my body. No professor interferes or tries to teach me the various components of the colors. Nature becomes my friend and teacher. I breathe slowly, observe: the light changes and transforms the colors, surfaces, and scents. The dawn in Bosa, the night of Aggius, the deep blue of Capo Testa, the friendly stones of Costa Paradiso, and the silence of the Valle della Luna capture me and invite me to take part in a divine work. I discover the ravines, the caves: I descend into the depths of the island until I feel its throbbing, its noblest part.
I slowly discover its treasures. I touch its heart.