My travel journal

My whole art project is based on the human figure. Even in my travel journal I see the world through the persons, they are always the main subject. My aim is to represent a place through its inhabitant, its tourists, whoever is living there for a while and share the spirit of that place.
Another strategy of my work is constantly to move the target. I make an example, in my portraits I have moved the focus from the figure to the background. For more information about it, kindly see the Portraits page. And here I make something very similar, I move the focus from the town, the landscape, whatever is connected to the environment, to boys, girls, women, men … in short, people.

In relation to the technics, you’ll find on this page, three kinds of works: mostly markers on paper (characterized by the use of markers only), some mixed media and a few paintings. With reference to the places depicted, you’ll find from one side Milan and Venice, then an inner travel and a travel to my roots and on the other side, some classical travel experiences I made in Italy, Europe,USA, and Canada. I want to extend the range of places, in the next months.

Markers on paper

Markers, only markers. I love them because they remind me of when I was a child. As almost every visual artist, I started drawing that I was very young, and I still remember some ambitious project, full of little details, that I realized. It’s funny, now I’m 51 yo, but these new works share the same essence of those early ones.

There’s a drawing I still remember clearly, it was a big building, and I spent days to draw and then to color with markers every single window. Working with markers is not easy due to the unfortunate side effect you find when areas of color overlap. Over time I have developed a personal technique to avoid it and one of this is to crowd the paper with fine details.

Venice and my roots

Venice, Venezia in Italian, is an obsession to me. It’s incomparably the place in the world I love more, the place I’d like to live in, the place where the ancient artists that I most admire and follow have worked. Veneto is the part of Italy where my family comes from. I’ve born in Milan, but my parents have always spoken the Venetian dialect at home and I’ve grown with that sound.

Every time I depict Venice I’m trying to reappropriate my roots. Sometimes I think that Venice represents my parents as well. So you can understand that Venice is not just a place like another for me. It’s not only the most amazing town on the planet, Venice takes other hundreds of meanings. I go there whenever is possible, I know its churches, streets and squares, canals, and bridges like the back of my hand.

Links help the web to grow!

There are a lot of artists that make an amazing job with illustrated travel journals and reportages, here an artist I admire.

German illustrator Olivier Kugler, also some reportages about Syrian refugees: Olivier Kugler