LOVE Series

These are two of the most heart touching artworks I gave birth to: they represent my mother and my father which are both in their eighties.

I wanted the delicacy of their elderness to visually emerge through elegance of fishes and their fins which are like voils, while the bones of the hands are in a sense the "active" side of their life: what has been built through a lifetime. My dad is painted in black, that to me is a kind of a male colour: in the eyes of the fish, I can see the expression of his real eyes. He has got Parkinson's disease so sometimes it's hard for him to talk and he stares at me silent, so dad's painting is in a sense more passive. My mum is painted in red which is a feminine colour to me: red like her active bright energy, she holds in hand a silvery and glittery flower that represents memories, hope and dreams of a whole life.

It was around March last year (2020). I was talking to my brother: he was going to travel abroad for work and he was a little nervous for some reasons. I asked him: "How do you feel about that?" and he replied: "I feel butterflies in my stomach."
It was so sweet to me, to listen to that kind of statement coming from a person in his early fifties. Suddenly a picture of those feelings portrayed in my mind: it was strong still sweet and matched with my anatomy passion.

This is for him, because I think that feeling emotions is a true blessing, making you feel alive in an almost numb world.

If I were asked what love is, at this very moment my answer would be this image: shrinking such a wide affaire in a caring, sweet and deep gaze.

In this series I have used symbols that rarely stand close one each other. This is a work about - and against - stereotypes and prejudices: the fetuses, which represent the beginning of life in all its power and vulnerability, are sweetly looked after by a spider and a snake which are animals that many consider repugnant and disgusting. Life can be nourished through love and through "differences" as well, in many unexpected ways, getting outstanding results.

The matter of gaze comes here again: gaze is so important to me.

I think it's kind of a litmus paper: it takes a little bit of practice maybe - like everything - and maybe a hint of intuition, which often is more real than analysis, but you can understand so much of another person just looking at his/her eyes. Sometimes we put such a big effort into "be seen" by someone we love like a partner, and we waste time and energies in that, while maybe we should surrend to the fact that we cannot force that someone to look at us: they do or they don't. If they do they are interested in us, if they don't they aren't. Easy, but sometimes easiness is so straight and clear to be painfully unbearable.

Eyes, to me, are like a window on someone's inner world. In this painting I wanted to picture a gaze of true and pure love: a parent's one. The gaze that cuddles and embraces a whole life. That kind of gaze which has been taught to us and that we should always remember when making choices for a life partner. I think I have been really loved by the two persons that gave me life and I'm deeply grateful for that. Their look has been so strongly full of love that sometimes I have the fear it will be very hard to me find someone else looking at me that way.