Your worktable seems to me to say a lot about you. There are your oil paints and your earths scrupulously organized.
Yes, there are tubes of oil paints. It is in fact my favorite technique and with which I started many years ago, using a painting set given to my wife for her birthday. I then discovered the world of pigments and began to experiment using materials close to me, such as the earth from vineyards, the charcoal from the vines left over from the bonfires from winter pruning, the dust from roof tiles and bricks from country farmhouses.
Back then they were experiments, today they are part of a circular process that roots me in the area where I grew up and in that peasant knowledge in which I am immersed.

«I try to immerse my protagonists in a timeless vision. As if they were masters of a dilated and suspended time».
 

The attitude with which you collect and arrange your pigments in labeled jars tell an important part of your work.
I am a chemist. Curiosity for chemical compounds and materials has always influenced my way of looking at things and approaching painting.
In fact, with the same attitude with which I carry out my work as a researcher, I began to investigate what I found on the subject, both from an artistic and a technical-scientific point of view. The pigments have been an irresistible attraction.

«I like trying to simplify the vision of the world, I would like to be direct, strong, effective. In painting I try to reduce
narration in minimal terms to give space to a few forms capable of transmitting emotions».
 

Even the place where you work says a lot about your aptitude and the long time you take to 'inhabit' the paintings.
For some years now my studio has been located in the attic of our family home, surrounded by spectacular nature. We live on top of a surrounded hillfrom woods and vineyards of the Langhe, a few steps from an abandoned 12th century Benedictine monastery. I'm lucky enough to travel a lot for work, but this is where I come back to recharge.

There is another aspect in your work which is the fruit of your passion. Painted images often come to life from a photograph. What relationship exists between this and painting?
I have always been a photographer. Photography has taught me over time to freeze an instant, to define a shot, to focus on a detail. Painting then allows me to add to the image what I can't do with a shot: my emotions, my experience, my relationships with the subject I choose to represent.

Who are the protagonists of your works?
I paint what I love and it is around me. You will find many hills, rows of mountains and typical views. And still my loved ones, my family. Even in the simplest of compositions, I try to create images that can directly convey a sensation, a state of mind. Each of my paintings is born first of all in my mind. Sometimes the mental creative process is longer than the concrete production of the painting.
It gives me great satisfaction to build images in my mind and then use shapes and colors to add my own meaning. With photography I have always tried to do the same thingbut in the end with painting it's easier for me.

Which artists have influenced your way of proceeding?
I am fascinated by the artists of the Italian Renaissance, by the innovation brought by Piero della Francesca to render the depth of field on the surface of the painting, by Leonardo's chiaroscuro, by Vermeer's colours. I really like to observe the use of color in the
impressionists like Monet or in the post-impressionism of Van Gogh, where color and the pictorial gesture become pure emotion. But when I discovered Lucian Freud (1922-2011) the German naturalized British painter, nephew of Sigmund Freud, it was a real shock. The expressive power of his realistic and intense portraits lies in each of his brushstrokes. The involvement it manages to create in the viewer really got me
impressed.

​

«Each of my paintings is born in the mind. Sometimes the creative process takes longer than the production one».
 

What do you aspire to? What direction do you intend to give to your future work?
I like trying to simplify the vision of the world, I would like to be direct, strong, effective.
Whether it is the white giant of Monviso, a landscape of the Langhe or a human figure, I try to reduce the narrative to a minimum to make room for a few forms capable of conveying emotions. I try to immerse the protagonists of my paintings in a timeless vision. As if they themselves were masters of a dilated and suspended time. This is the direction that I would like to continue investigating with my work.