ALLEGORY OF A MASK Painting

Oil painting on canvas is the technique I prefer, sometimes replaced by pastel on cardboard, but the stroke is always the same, the style is realistic. I choose these two techniques because the first one lends itself to the composition of the painting, because starting from an initial idea, it allows me to change the image from time to time, so it is a reflective technique that slowly brings me to the final result. It allows me to arrive, if I want, to the perfection of the figures, deciding the number of passes that you want to give. The second technique serves me to understand and see immediately the subject that will be depicted, as the pastel gives almost immediate results, without having to go over the areas already painted. My genre is a surrealistic figurative that tries to tell hidden stories and emotions. The story takes place either in dreamlike, evocative and surreal landscapes or in simple contexts, depicting individuals with their shadows. When I paint subjects in landscapes I carry out an introspective search of memory: the young subject is the protagonist. This occupies the main part of a scenery created with an old house sometimes ruined (according to a time that has now passed), a wild vegetation, enriched with symbolic objects and animals that have had a particular sense in that story. I try to project the viewer in a subconscious dimension, in his memory creating a surreal environment. Painting the characters with their shadows allows me to go beyond appearance, beyond the first glance. We see the protagonist in a certain pose, always thoughtful look, with behind a shadow that seems to be his physical shadow, but that instead projects something else, his feeling, his personal essence, the one that at first glance can not be perceived immediately, but that you understand going deeper, knowing the person, his experiences and his desires, fears, expectations. The realization of the works is always starting from photos of young subjects, I choose a context, and symbols, depending on the story I want to tell and then paint in one scene. The painting sessions are different: I try to give at least three passages to all the elements of the painting, sometimes, if I do not find satisfaction, I find myself reviewing even 5 times the protagonist subject, which must tell and therefore must be as credible as possible.