My Journey
I started painting with watercolors when I was 40, just messing around with my son. What began as a game quickly turned into a real passion.
I don’t have an academic background in art, and I’m wary of the term “self-taught” because I believe we’re all constantly learning from others. My real education has been empirical, through trial and error. I’ve read countless books and watched endless videos, but my true classroom has always been practice. By simply doing, and by observing the work of other artists, I found my own path.
My Vision
My creative process is a slow-burn. It can take me days, sometimes weeks, to clarify what I want to express before I even lay down the first brushstroke. This time for introspection is essential: it helps me connect with an emotion, a feeling, or a specific mood I want to convey.
My watercolors are like captured moments, fleeting impressions. Instead of trying to paint every little detail, I prefer to suggest and leave space for the viewer to connect with the work and project their own emotions onto it.
Often, I work with a very limited palette of just two or three single-pigment, transparent colors. I love spending time mixing them to get unique shades and colored grays. These subtle nuances are what give my paintings their soul.
My pursuit is emotional, not aesthetic. For inspiration, I love to get lost in the work of photographers, not just looking at photos, but really feeling the sensations their work evokes. Sometimes, one of their images will be my starting point, and I’ll re-create it by infusing my own feelings. Other times, I’ll take bits and pieces from different universes, which, when combined, give life to a complete and personal piece. My goal is to create paintings that have a real presence, that touch the viewer, and that awaken a lasting memory or feeling.