There are days when, standing before the canvas, I am not looking for a subject. I am looking for light. Not the kind that illuminates everything and makes everything clear. I am interested in a different kind of light: the kind that streams in through a door left ajar, passes [...]

How an image is born

The birth of Restanza. From the figure to absence Images are not born in front of a canvas. They are born much earlier. Sometimes a door left ajar, an empty room, an object left in its place, a light that enters in silence is enough. In that instant I feel [...]

What remains when everything else is gone

There are objects that seem to have nothing left to say. An empty chair, a half-open door, an old mirror, an abandoned bed, a forgotten toy. Ordinary objects, which we meet every day without truly looking at them. And yet, when someone goes away, those same objects change. They become [...]

What light tells us

Light does not only serve to see: the secret of shadow between Caravaggio and Turner. Light does not only serve to see. It seems a simple, almost obvious statement, and yet much of the history of painting could be told starting precisely from this idea. Light shows things, certainly, but [...]

The art of staying, to learn to see

We live in a time that continually invites us to go elsewhere. We rush, we change, we consume every experience in the hope that the next one will be better. And yet art has taught me a different lesson: sometimes the greatest discovery is born precisely from staying. To stay [...]

Light is in no hurry

We live in a time that demands immediate results. Everything must appear, convince, be consumed in a few instants. Art too often seems forced to chase this speed. And yet light knows no hurry. Light arrives when it finds a space ready to welcome it. It crosses a window, brushes [...]

Looking is not enough, you must know how to see

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 [...]

How an image is born

Viviamo circondati da immagini. Le scorriamo sui telefoni, le incrociamo per strada, le dimentichiamo pochi istanti dopo. Eppure le immagini che rimangono dentro di noi non sono necessariamente le più spettacolari. Sono quelle che abbiamo davvero imparato a guardare. Guardare non significa semplicemente vedere. Vedere è un gesto automatico; guardare [...]

The house as an archive of memory

There are places that never stop speaking to us. Even when they are empty, even when time seems to have come to a standstill, they keep holding something invisible. The house is one of these places. I am not speaking of the house as a mere building, but of the [...]