ALESSANDRO

Oil on canvas 50x60cm

A portrait of my brother Alessandro.

AYEZ DES IDÉES

Oil on canvas 70x50cm

I used two slogans of May 1968 protests in France in this painting:

"Create" and

"Be realistic, want the impossible!"

VERA LUCIA

Oil on cavas 60x60cm

This was a gift for my old lady and she loved it. Here she is at the age of 4. Such a cute girl!

I HAVE A DREAM

Oil on cavas, 50x70cm

"Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

HAIKU #2

Oil on canvas 50x60cm

the wind of Mt. Fuji
I've brought on my fan!
a gift from Edo

HAIKU #1

Oil on canvas 60x80cm

old pond
a frog jumps
the sound of water

LIBERTÈ

Oil on canvas 60X100cm
Libertè. Liberty. Freedom. Lady Liberty.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries sheWith silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
(State of Liberty Poem - engraved on a bronze plaque and contained inside of the Statue of Liberty.)

DETAILS

ABU GHRAIB

Oil on canvas 40X50cm

My great friend and painter Jay Huddelston once told me: "(...)You expressed disappointment with the influence art and artists are able to have over politics and social justice. I think our role is largely philosophical - like Socrates: "I am the gadfly." We serve by asking questions, and the visual and performing arts pose the questions in a vital way - through imagery - that people are able to understand and be touched by even if they wouldn't read an essay or even trouble with an editorial opinion in a newspaper. The most ordinary peasant can see Guernica and know the Spanish Civil War was evil, that Fascism is evil or they can see a play or a movie and come away with knowledge about AIDS or Islam or blood diamonds that they could have learned from National Geographic but they had no interest in reading. Just as songs are an improvement on poetry, art helps people digest philosophy. We cannot stop the war in Iraq, but we can question it, and we condemn the people responsible. Bush will be hated until the end of time - Art is eternal."

When I decided to paint about Abu Ghraib prison (inspired by Huddelston and Diego Rivera) I tried to find a shocking image that could express all the sickness and sadism of those specific american soldiers. Somehow I could see pleasure (almost sexual) in the face of the tortures in the Abu Ghraib pictures that were made famous worldwide after the Taguba Report in 2004.

DETAILS

THERE'S NO TIME FOR LOVE, CHARLIE BROWN

Oil on canvas 80x60cm

The Fundação Instituto de Pesquisas Economicas (FIPE) researched by request of the town hall, the number of children living in the streets of São Paulo, Brazil. They enumerated 1842 children living by their own on the streets with any kind of adult surveillance. The research says they use distincts strategies to survive.

I worked on this painting on my painting school and was surprised by the reaction of the other students. For instance one old lady told me she would pray for me. People started look at me as I was crazy by "painting such a dreadful delinquent". "Who would buy this?". One lady asked why I couldn't paint something "usual". I told her: "We live in a city with more than 1800 children sleeping in the sidewalks and you are painting a german castle for weeks, now who is the one painting something unusual?".

FIPE - http://www.fipe.org.br/web/index.asp

DETAILS

TOO MUCH CANDY GONNA RIDE YOUR SOUL

Oil on canvas 40x60cm

Sometimes you start to paint and life is faster than your hands. I look at this painting and it has nothing to do with me! I don't recognize myself in this work. I'm much older now than when I started to paint this swing caroussel a few weeks ago. Years, maybe decades had passed... I fell weak and vulnerable. Why is all those people laughing when even love can make you miserable? Wouldn't be a good idea to cut all the cables?

DETAILS

STEP BY STEP

AS SOON AS YOU'RE BORN YOU START DYING

Oil on canvas 30X40cm

This is my first self portrait. It was supposed to be darker, almost in a grey scale but somehow it ended up like this. Maybe I'm not that glommy after all. I tooke inspiration on Jenny Saville's huge paintings. If you don't know her you must check out her work. She is amazing.

SAD LIGHTS

Oil on canvas 30x40 cm

This is lighter than it shows here but it is hard to take a good shoot when it's still wet.

I painted this over Stephen Magsig's City Lights #28. What a great painter. What great pleasure I had on this one.

SWING CAROUSSEL

Circus and amusement parks are themes that I love to paint. This is an oil on canvas, 40X60 cm and is not finished, of course.

DARK VOICE LIKE TINTED GLASS

Oil on masonite 20x20 cm

"Anger as soon as fed is dead-
'Tis starving makes it fat." Emily Dickinson

I think this is not finished. I intend to light the lips and to darken the veil.

MEANWHILE IN AMERICA...

Oil on canvas, 60X80 cm based on Timothy Horn's Bus Stop

According to the Iraq Body Count (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/) 81,639 - 89,110 documented civilians (strictly 'non-combatant') got killed in the Iraq war and occupation. 16 yesterday.