Sguardi (Gazes)
2025
On view now, from April 11th to 25th , Centro Culturale San Sebastiano, Sesto Fiorentino (FI)
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Sguardi (Gazes) is an autonomous chapter within the broader project Promesse (Promises), which originated from the painting I tuoi occhi blu mi guardano fallire, ancora (Your blue eyes watch me fail, again). The cycle explores the themes that run throughout the entire project—failure, broken promises, fragmented identity—translating them into a deeply intimate and autobiographical visual investigation that touches on universal dimensions.
Composed of six oil and charcoal on canvas works, Sguardi unfolds as a chronological journey from the places of my childhood to the present. Each piece originates from the reflection captured in the eyes portrayed: mirror-like surfaces in which spaces, memories, and emotional states emerge—elements that do not belong solely to the subjects, but become zones of confrontation with what I had tried not to see in myself.
The device of the gaze thus becomes a site of resistance and revelation: a point where observer and observed exchange roles, generating a dialogue that challenges certainties and raises questions about identity, vulnerability, and the construction of the self.
Sguardi represents a radical search for honesty. Exposing oneself through the reflection in the eyes of others means accepting the risk of truth, fragility, and contradiction. The cycle concludes with a self-portrait reflected in my own eye: an image that evokes disorientation and the always-illusory attempt to know oneself and find calm within an existence that does not always return a sense of peace.
L’appartamento (The apartment) 2025
oil and charcoal on canvas 60 x 60 cm 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 inches
1.500 €
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L’appartamento (The apartment) depicts the condominium where I grew up, reflected in my mother’s eye.
The work investigates the fragility of a family trying to remain united more by social inertia than by genuine will.
The house, now sold, survives as a mental space: a symbol of what was retained beyond necessity and of the suffering generated by forced bonds.
It is a portrait of the dissolution of expectations, the erosion of affections, the despair of what one stubbornly attempts to preserve, and the weight of family narratives that shape us.
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La morte delle margherite (The death of the daises) 2025
oil and charcoal on canvas 60 x 60 cm 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 inches
1.500 €
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La morte delle margherite (The death of the daisies) originates from a photograph from my childhood, hanging in my grandmother’s house: my sister and I as children, captured in an affectionate gesture.
Reflected in her gaze, that innocent and tender image takes on an adult melancholy.
The work reflects the distance between the idealized memory and the complex reality of what those children have become, alongside the steadfast hope of a generation that continues to wish the best for us despite a reality that is often fragile and harsh.
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La sfortuna del quadrifoglio (The misfortune of the four-leaf clover) 2025
oil and charcoal on canvas 60 x 60 cm 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 inches
1.500 €
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La sfortuna del quadrifoglio (The misfortune of the four-leaf clover) depicts my car after an accident in 2018, caused by alcohol abuse, reflected in my aunt’s eye.
The work explores the weight of familial and social gaze—more humiliating than the accident itself—and the complex relationship with addiction, not only substance-related but also emotional and behavioral.
The piece reflects on vulnerability and judgment. The title highlights the dual nature of the episode: a missed fortune and a salvific misfortune, a mirror of the dissonance that has accompanied my journey.
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Lingua lunga (Big mouth) 2025
oil and charcoal on canvas 60 x 60 cm 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 inches
1.500 €
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Lingua lunga (Big mouth) depicts a departing train, reflected in the eye of an old friend.
Growing up in a small village in the Casentino Valley, we dreamed of leaving, convinced that elsewhere we would find a more authentic existence. That train, however, was never taken: out of fear, convenience, or perhaps because we realized that changing place alone is not enough to escape oneself.
The title, deliberately sarcastic, alludes to the way time recalibrates past illusions, turning them into a bitter smile.
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Il mio bravo ragazzo (My good boy) 2025
oil and charcoal on canvas 60 x 60 cm 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 inches
1.500 €
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In Il mio bravo ragazzo (My good boy) I portray myself preparing for work, observed through my girlfriend’s eye.
The work reflects on the domestication process imposed by society: the transformation of the individual into a disciplined, predictable, and productive cog in the machine.
The title, ironic and provocative, suggests the docility with which we often accept preassigned roles, relinquishing parts of ourselves to conform to collective expectations.
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Un intimo sconosciuto (An intimate stranger) 2025
oil and charcoal on canvas 60 x 60 cm 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 inches
1.500 €
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Un intimo sconosciuto (An intimate stranger) is a self-portrait reflected in my own eye, a symbol of a constant inner search.
The work arises from a confrontation with the events depicted in my previous paintings, while questioning their significance: in a life that flows as an uninterrupted succession of occurrences, I wonder how much weight they have truly held and how much meaning has been attributed by my own gaze.
From this tension between significance and insignificance emerges a sense of existential emptiness, a distance that renders the reflected image almost foreign. It is within this dissonance that the search for an elusive identity takes shape.
The work thus becomes both the culmination of an awareness and, at the same time, the beginning of a new journey: an image that interrogates the gaze, memory, and the very essence of the self-portrait.
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