Every day we pass in front of hundreds of images. We observe them for an instant and then we forget them. It is the fate of a world that runs too fast. But art asks the opposite: it invites us to slow down.
Learning to look means granting time to things. An old peeling wall can tell more than a monument. A half-open door can speak of someone who has just left or of someone who will never return. An empty chair does not represent an absence, but a presence that keeps living in memory.
When I paint I never try to copy what I see. I seek what remains after the superficial glance has passed. It is there that the work is born.
Many people ask me why in my works the spaces seem inhabited even when no human figure appears. The answer is simple: people pass, places remember. Every room keeps a fragment of life, every object holds a gesture, every light retains a story.
The artist does not invent these stories. He listens to them.
This is why I invite you too to do a small exercise. Stop in front of a place you know well: a square, a window, the sea, an old house. Stay silent for a few minutes. Do not look for anything extraordinary. Let that place speak.
Perhaps you will discover that seeing does not only mean using your eyes. It means learning to listen to the memory hidden inside things.
It is from this listening that art is born. And it is from this listening that, sometimes, a new part of ourselves is born too.
Karam Sebastiano Cannarella