The idea of “Queen of Night” came to my mind during a sleepless night, while I was awoken in my bed and I couldn’t sleep. To distract me from my insomnia, I imagined to be inside a protected cage that left a trail of night everywhere it went. I let myself be lulled by this though and I imagined the cage flying over the mountains, over the river, beyond the known horizon.
As I imagined the cage flying over the landscape and turning day into night a sense of calmness pervaded my spirit.
Insomnia is like a nightmare, but metaphorically speaking we always have the power to transform the nightmares of our past into wonderful dreams, opening up a whole new horizon of possibilities.
Turning my insomnia into an illustration is one way of doing that.
Queen of night – 60×90 cm (23,62×35,43 in), oil on canvas – available for purchase, please contact the artist for details.
“The eagle and the snake” is the third painting inspired by “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” – F. Nietzsche. These two animals appear in the book every once in while and they are Zarathustra’s companions. The eagle is “the proudest animal under the sun” and the snake is “the wisest animal under the sun”.
The eagle and the serpent recall many symbols and they are the means to ancient hidden significances. The snakes are the sacred animal that in one of the version of Greek mythology gave Cassandra the gift of divination, making her a prophetess. The gift came with the curse that nobody would have ever believed her prophecies. She foresaw the fall of Troy, an emblem of the end of any doctrine or civilization.
The eagle and the snake – 80×100 cm (31.50×39.37 in), oil on canvas – available for purchase, please contact the artist for details.
In a dream of some years ago I had a polar bear as a friend. We lived deep and unforgettable adventures together. For some external conditions, I was forced to say goodbye to him for good. It was a painful and sad farewell for the both of us. I held his head and we both cried.
Having to say farewell to polar bears is a quite topical subject and that is why I decided to create this painting. It includes all the sweet melancholic farewells I had to say in my life.
Farewell my friend – the last polar bear – 80×100 cm (31.50×39.37 in), oil on canvas – available for purchase, please contact the artist for details.
This image is inspired by the prologue of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” by F. Nietzsche. Zarathustra wakes up with the sun and realizes that after ten years spent alone in the mountains in solitude he shall go down as the sun – to descend among men and share his wisdom.
He begins his descent to the depths, as the sun in the evening when it goes behind the sea and brings light to the underworld.
Continuing the metaphor, after a lonely infinite travel into the depth of my abysses, the realization that so much not believed possible is possible was a turning point in my life. This realization transformed my reality into magic.
Every descent to the depths implies a new rise.
Zarathustra’s down-going – 60×120 cm (23,62×47,24 in), oil on canvas – available for purchase, please contact the artist for details.
Magic. We live in a world of magic.
This feeling comes along every time I stop and leave space and time for it to rise. What is magic? Is a waterfall magic? A sky full of star? The animals in the wood? Magic happens everywhere when we create space and time within ourselves and outside. Even if reality is as it is. Life is a mystery, not only our life but the life of all the creatures in the world.
Books are one of the secret portals to that mystery. They let us open up to experiences outside our current boundaries, leading us to new horizons and making miracles real.
This painting is an ode to the secret knowledge books enclose, allowing us to live that magic.
New horizons – 50×70 cm (19,68×27,56 in), oil on canvas – private collection, please contact the artist for details.
Tuscany hills strikes you with their intense colors and their quietness calm. They are never too crowded and walking around that part of Italy is a continuous discovery. Many medieval villages are perched on the hillsides; they are all unique and with an ancient great history. If you visit them or just get lost in their tiny road, you can image how life could have been in the past in those small towns.
I created this painting as an ode to that part of Italy.
Hills of Tuscany – 35×50 cm (13.78×19.68 in), acrylic on canvas – private collection, please contact the artist for details.
One day apparently equal to the others my life has changed.
Just like a thunderbolt, I intuited that the essence of freedom is being able to make your choices according to the way how you personally perceive the world. I realized that I perfectly knew how I perceived the world and that I was free already. Nothing prevented me to succeed.
From that day on, I gradually became more capable of forging my own life path and to set aside the prejudices I had about myself. I decided to follow the route to joy instead of escaping the route of fear, precisely deciding where to set my energies and efforts. I decided to do what I love the most overcoming my fears.
This is one of the first paintings I created after that day, while I was freeing up more and more time and space to paint. The goose is a migrating bird that flies beyond many horizons from Scandinavia to southern Europe and it represents a symbol of freedom and joy; in this image it is a metaphor for overcoming your limits.
The migrating goose – 60×120 cm (23.62×47.24 in), oil on canvas – sold, please contact the artist for details.
The first time I saw Roman ruins in Rome I was very impressed. Immense columns and stones of sacred and political buildings were lying on the ground, exposed to the passage of time and to the weather.
Looking at those ruins, I was totally overwhelmed envisioning how that big Empire could have been in the past and I had the clear feeling that those ancient stones enclosed something bigger than what you could actually see. I thought about how odd it was: on the ground, with those Roman ruins, lied the totality of the Roman Empire: their beliefs, their gladiators, their philosophers and their Gods…. Those ruins were the tangible evidence of a great world that didn’t exist anymore.
Some time ago I dreamt those ancient ruins and the other elements I depicted. The dream that I had is the story about the immense end of an era and a new coming beginning. After a sudden inner change of paradigm my whole world started disrupting, like the ancient ruins in the background. I couldn’t give a sense to this unexpected change and the void left by the past was too huge to be beared. This is represented by the lost prisoners in the painting.
The dormant lions represent the new dormant beginning. In my work lions often represent strength and the power to rise.
The prisoners dream – 60×120 cm (23.62×47.24 in), oil on canvas – available for purchase, please contact the artist for details.
Sometimes our life changes. Suddenly, like a flash flood or an avalanche, without apparent elements of continuity with the past. Just one day you wake up and you are different.
I lived this incredible experience during a travel to Sardinia. In that time of my life I was struggling to understand who I was and how I wanted to live my life. On that island, one day the answer just erupted from my heart. As lava from a volcano, an inner voice revealed an essential truth:
“You ARE an artist. You HAVE ALWAYS BEEN. You forgot who you are because you’ve been influenced by other people”.
From that day on, I started living my life and stopped living someone else life. Living according to my perception, I am progressively setting my spirit free.
The image of the dragon and the lion is inspired by “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” by F. Nietzsche when he talks about the liberation of the spirit. The essential message is: become who you are.
The second metamorphosis – 60×120 cm (23.62×47.24 in), oil on canvas – private collection, please contact the artist for details.
A lot of my childhood days were spent with my grandparents at their huge mansion. My toys were kept in a room down a long yellow hallway; I had to walk through it when I wanted to get them. The yellow hallway was my nightmare, as it was dark and unusually furnished.
I proceeded down the hallway slowly and cautiously and time seemed to stop. Behind every creak there could have been a hidden monster and ghosts appeared everywhere. The sinuous furniture legs were insect legs in my mind’s eye and they would have come to life at any moment.
I never told anybody about the fear of the hallway that I had. Some time ago, I dreamt a quite unreal scene set in that hallway.
And this is what this painting is about. My childhood unrevealed fear of that hallway.
The yellow hallway dream – 60×90 cm (23.62×35.43 in), oil on canvas – available for purchase, please contact the artist for details.
When I was a child I was a mysterious little girl with a lot of peculiarities.
I loved forests, animals and drawings. I preferred playing with dinosaurs and monsters than with dolls and other “girl games”. They asked me what I wanted to become and I answered that I wanted to be a painter.
When I grew up I understood that all such characteristics where not much liked in my environment. I tried to be someone else for many years.
It took me a long time to understand and accept the child that I was. I took her by the hand and I am currently guiding her toward her dreams and hopes.
This image represents the research thought a surreal past to reach again the child that I was, which is my real essence.
When I was a child – 50×100 cm (19.68×39.37 in), oil on canvas – available for purchase, please contact the artist for details.
My town is located close to a forest. I think I’m lucky to enjoy the beauty of trees and animals every time that I wish. The forest is one of my favorite places.
Walking between the trees I’m filled with the impression that all around me is sacred. My soul enters in an attitude of prayer and I am instantly carried into an awesome mysterious world. I just feel I am a tiny part of a bigger whole and I marvel at the beauty of the fox or of a falling leave.
Some time ago I had a dream about the forest. Two anonymous threatening shadows, indistinguishable one from the other, were walking into the wood. They were trampling on a lion’s face made of stone and mosses, not noticing that the spirit of the forest is alive.
The strong impressions that that dream left me stayed with me me for a long time.
I felt it again when I decided to paint that scene.
The lion dream – 50×60 cm (19.68×23.62 in), oil on canvas – available for purchase, please contact the artist for details.
In the past, I used to think that the possible paths of life were in limited numbers and somehow pre-estabilished.
All of a sudden I realized that there are endless possibilities for the ones who commit to whatever is their passion and forge their life path, creating new routes without following the existing ones. The majority of the obstacles and troubles that prevent our dreams to come true are shadows projected in our heart by unlucky situations of our lives. We feed those shadows so much that they become real. To fulfill your dreams, you just need not to feed those shadows anymore. They will never show up if your intention is pure and you follow your heart.
I realized this concept suddenly and I created this painting. The doves are a symbol of going back to the essential core of things, eliminating the superfluous.
The doves – 50×70 cm (19.68×27.56 in), acrylic on canvas – available for purchase, please contact the artist for details.
This painting represents the search for a meaning in a troubled moment of my life. The figures are not defined and this is the way I saw the word in that moment.
They are all looking in the same direction and beyond the limits of the canvas, as praying at something that’s not present.
The mysterious figures of the desert – 40×50 cm (15.74×19.68 in), acrylic on canvas – available for purchase, please contact the artist for details.
When I created this painting I just lost someone important. My biggest concern was creating a fil rouge between the past and the present to make sense of the terrible experience. The emptiness he had left was disarming and my path of life was a solitary caravan into a desert. I was a pilgrim in search of a meaning and a goal for my life, still too tied to the past to find it.
Back then, I couldn’t know that the thing that would have saved me was the magic vision of life that I have. I still had to discover that the meaning of things resides within us and not outside.
The first metamorphosis – 40×80 cm (15.74×31.50 in), acrylic on canvas – available for purchase, please contact the artist for details.
There are periods of our life when we suddenly embrace a new direction. Utterly, with passion, dedication and no half measures.
That has happened to me. I unexpectedly found myself in a new work environment made of people who invented, created, developed ideas and built with astonishing simplicity and coordination.
I was very young and they were like super heroes to my eyes. I wanted to be like them. It was a deeper experience to discover that I was able to adapt and that made me feel alive. I devoted myself body and soul to that job -even if it was not properly my field- with a curious and energetic approach only to discover that it had to come to an end. The end was bitter, sad and sudden.
I could not find a reason, the experience was just gone like the snow or the summer go. I felt defeated. I kept repeating something silently under my breath when I came back home the day it was over. I remember what it was now. I was saying: “I will be never like you”.
And that’s what this painting is about. The void left by the loss of our reference points.
The prayer – 50×100 cm (19.68×39.37 in), acrylic on canvas – private collection, please contact the artist for details.
Few people know that I’ve suffered from depression when I was younger.
I remember my days were pervaded by a sense of immobility and chaotic suffering. I progressively felt as people could not understand me and their way of perceiving became further and further from mine. The memory of the past experiences that had been positive and that used to make me feel alive crumbled like a clay pot thrown on a wall. I thought they had been meaningless and fake, with no consistency. I stopped talking to people about my feelings and I isolated myself so much from others that I got totally wrapped up in my own suffering.
This is what this painting talks about. The stork of the painting is still -the way I felt the world was-, her beak is broken. This is a kind of sufferance no human can understand. She is isolated right at the center of the scene; her world is threatening and full of unknown menaces represented by the black figures surrounding her.
Today I know that the experience of depression is part of my story and that it contributed to create the person that I am.
Her tears created the sea – 40×80 cm (15.74×31.50 in), oil on canvas – available for purchase, please contact the artist for details.