In recent years there has been much talk of memory, of roots and of abandoned places. Often, however, these themes are associated with nostalgia, as if looking at the past meant simply longing for it. My idea of Restanza is different.
Restanza is not the desire to go back. It is not the regret for what has been. It is the awareness that some places continue to hold a presence even when the people are no longer there.
An empty room, a door left ajar, a chair left in its place, a window through which the light enters. They are simple elements. And yet, they can tell an entire life. Objects preserve traces. Walls hold time. Space becomes a witness.
In my painting the body often disappears. Not because it is less important, but because what remains can speak with an even greater force. Absence becomes a form of presence. Silence becomes narration.
Perhaps we live in an age that runs too fast. We consume images, places and relationships without stopping. Restanza is instead an invitation to pause. To look at what remains. To recognise that memory does not live only in recollections, but also in things, in settings, in the light that keeps falling on the same walls.
Many of my works are born from abandoned houses, from rooms now empty, from forgotten objects. I do not seek the document or the chronicle. I seek that subtle vibration that survives the passing of people.
Restanza is the memory that continues to inhabit places.
It is the time that has not entirely moved away.
It is the light held in space.
Karam Sebastiano Cannarella