It’s Saturday morning and I fell myself full of energy! Another week passed and life flows gently. I prepared my Gravel bike for a ride in the wood just outside my house: the chain is oiled, tyres pumped and the frame is shining under this winter sun. What else? Dressed winter clothes to ride an go, to breath cold and fresh air outdoor in the nature! I wanted to ride until the confluence of the two rivers of my city. In reality, only one is crossing it: the other is some km away and they find there conjunction under a famous bridge. This is not so beautiful ( ok, let’s say “ugly” 😛 ) and was builded up just after the WW2.
This place is very familiar to me and very dear to me, because there I went fishing with my father when I was a child. He died when I was 10 y.o. but I conserve so many experiences and moments with him, that are indelible. One of them is fishing together with him and my uncle. Many wood are surrounding this place and the quiet, the nature itself is so inspiring to me. It’s a very big contrast with the traffic on the bridge: any hour so many cars pass, crossing one side to the other to go on the hills and to take the highway. I am so happy when I stay away from traffic! When I was a bike racer it was common for me three or four time per week to ride in the traffic, but when I discover the bikepacking, I immediately switch for the exploration and the travels. Ok, I’m a little bit older, too 😛 Back to this day, I crossed this land and one of the wood was really capturing me. you can see it at the other side of the bridge. It’s incredible how to slow down the rhythm of the life we can appreciate things that other people don’t care… How many details, senses, silence we can enjoy! And the nature is there to teach us time by time a step forward. This wood was partially reflecting in the river and the light was so particular at that hour. I took a picture, I thought about that, but also I mixed up part of a season gone, that I understood how to appreciate not so many years ago: the Autumn. I had a mixed vision: Winter, plus Autumn, plus the light of that moment. When I came home I took a rest and after I started to paint this one, that I called “Woodland”. It’ possible to see my vision in it and the texture is obtained with modelling paste, but entirely the subject is made by a sponge. It was a challenge to obtain this painting, who’s on the border of the figurative art, but I think is abstraction in anyway, because of the story inside of it. It give a sense of depth and a little bit of adventure, because of its indistinguishable details in the wood itself. I think an observer can have my same sense of feeling looking at: do you think so?
I wanted to use the colours so loved by Pierre Emmanuel Eugène Damoye, on his “Ile Saint-Ouen”, 1881.
Tell me here down what do You think about and if You’re interested to know more, send a message!
I wish You a nice weekend!