Paintings on this page are divided into two groups: architectural sketches and people.
What I leave on the page or surface is always according to the media I use. If I am working with watercolors, for example, I like to splash color here and there and let the water “do it’s thing.”
The architecture images are mostly painted from photographs. Even if I go out to work on site, I like to have worked out the positioning of the subject beforehand.
I always liked to draw the human body but in 2020, because of Covid restrictions, figure drawing sessions in studios around Chicago were being held remotely, which I found somewhat boring.
So, one day I went looking for contemporary dance videos on YouTube and landed on a recording of an Italian aerialist, Andrea Paoli. From there, I discovered that other aerialists from around the world post their training videos on Instagram and I began sketching and painting them.
I find aerialists (silk, loop and trapeze artists) fascinating. The body is dangling in the air from a prop that requires a lot of physical strength. You are up there, alone – most of the time – exposed, vulnerable and creating figures, stretching your body to feign a grace masking the strength required to perform your moves.
A comic book store opened its doors down the street. I brought my son Gian Carlo there because I remembered how important comic books had been in my passion for reading. There I discovered the books of David Mack and created a series of portraits inspired by his watercolor technique.
If two-dimensional art lacks the element of action/time, I found out that it can be represented by the expressionistic effect of brushstrokes on the page.
(NOTE: You can click on each image to view details about each of the paintings.)
2020 is, of course, the year we were asked – or ordered – to stay home to avoid the spread of Covid-19. Except for a few days at the beginning of the stay-at-home order, I reported to work.
Since I could not go to museums or take classes in person, I decided to follow a course by Alex Hillkurtz on urban watercolor painting. That thrust me into a frenzy of painting like I hadn’t experienced since my days in college. Every day, back from work, I would sit in my studio and paint. Some people saw my work online and either bought the images or commissioned me to create them.
I set myself the following principles in choosing what to paint: if I worked from a photograph, it had to be one I took; if I took an image from somewhere else, it would only be a screen capture from a video; and, I would always modify what I saw so it would not be a straight copy from a photo.
In this process, I remembered there were some bas-relief from buildings I had walked by in Chicago that haunted me for years, so they became another source of material for watercolors.
Downtown Prometheus (May 2020)
Wicker Park Terracotta (August 2020)
Then came the demonstrations and riots around the country. I ride my bicycle downtown to take the train to work, and the change of energy around me prompted me to keep my phone recording all the time, just in case I found myself in a situation I wanted or needed to document.
State Street, 4:30 p.m. (November 2020)
Damen Avenue, 2 p.m. (October 2020)
Metra Train Overpass, 4:45 p.m. (July 2020)
I have a hard time sitting down and watching movies, but this was the year I spent long hours watching Netflix and Amazon Prime movies as I never did before in my life. I started sketching from these series.
Finally, I always liked to draw the human body but, again, because of Covid restrictions, I could not participate in the figure drawing sessions in studios around Chicago. So, one day I went looking for contemporary dance videos on YouTube and landed on a recording of an Italian aerialist, Andrea Paoli. From there, I discovered that other aerialists post their training videos on Instagram and I began sketching and painting them.
Andrea Paoli #1 (Aerialists series, September 2020)
