The Pink that Turns from Landscape into Dream on Elba

Walking can also be a practice of meditation and source of inspiration.

Living on an island allows you to do it under the best conditions, especially in winter.

The silence, scents and colours, in fact, are special. Every day has its own, breaking up the long winter.

For me walking from the historic centre of Portoferraio, where I live, to the Spiaggia delle Ghiaie is an opportunity to see the landscape in an ever changing guise.

Out of this came, one cold morning in February, the work Mediterranean No 23.

It was born out of my sense of wonder, in fact, at a surreal panorama, a magical atmosphere that seemed to have lost all earthly reference, apart from the famous ‘scoglietto’.

Pink, the colour of February, had seeped into the scene, blending delicately with the bluish grey of the sea.

I took a photo, but remained for a long time gazing at that panorama, so different from other days.

The photograph did not even vaguely capture the atmosphere I was breathing.

I started to take a series of them, to no effect: I gave up.

Out of the synchronicity of life (a concept dear to artists, but not to them alone) the following day I received a message from a woman who had seen my work and asked if there were any chance that she could commission a picture from me.

This is always a rather delicate matter for anyone creative and depends greatly on the freedom of expression that is left to the artist.

In that case I decided to seize the opportunity to propose to her a work which would draw on the peculiar sensation I had experienced that morning, of a landscape that was real and unreal at one and the same time.

This was how the oil painting Portal no.46  was born.

However that special pink which had pervaded the air and become an atmosphere would not leave me in peace. It still needed to be given space and a voice.

It was not the first time that a suggestion, a sensation stirred by the landscape had generated different works.

And so I turned the pink into sandpaper, in a collage of colours that were at once intense and cold.

Colours that remind me in a way of the artist Helene Schjerfbeck, who was able to capture the distinctive palette of her native Finland on the cold days of the north.

This collage is intended to express all the femininity of pink, which transforms the landscape into a dreamy, eternal moment.

Out of this sprang the idea of turning it into a poster dedicated to this magical island, based on the sketch for the collage.

I’ve tried to tell this story out loud, taking you to the island of Elba… If you want to listen to it you can do so here: