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• As an artist, I anchor myself to certain principles. First and foremost, there is a strong connection with the natural world, which is especially reflected in the materials I use—a practice linked to discarded, reclaimed, and natural elements that I work and assemble. There is always a connection with the places where these practices take shape. I need to have a variety of materials at hand in order to develop reflections. It’s as if I always find analogies between thought, life, and the materials that surround me. With these, I create objects, paintings, installations, and sculptures that carry messages. Material and concept are deeply intertwined because through these words I reflect on existence, on our role in life. It’s a reflection that runs always parallel to our function within the natural environment—seeing humans as beings that are part of nature just like any other element.

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• I would say that “visual artist” is the definition that best encompasses what I do. My background and training are in painting, but my work has long moved beyond painting alone, even though some aspects remain. Medieval painters, for instance, used natural materials—pigments and colors were nothing more than natural resources. In my practice, there’s an initial, almost performative aspect, tied to researching places and creating the works themselves, which cannot be confined to a single discipline: I often work outdoors, with installations placed in natural environments, and sometimes I also produce video.

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• From the beginning, nature has been central, even when I was still painting. I started by painting and observing nature and the landscape was already the main subject. Then came the need not just to observe it, but to enter into it, to capture its material aspects. From there, quite naturally, materials began to emerge from the surface, becoming more present in space. It has been a progressive journey: I started working with living elements of nature—plants, vegetation—and from that came the desire to install works in natural settings.

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• There are many questions that are driving me right now. On a technical level, I’m very inspired by the search for new materials and techniques. Conceptually, I reflect a lot on how, in this historical moment, I can still say something as a human being and an artist. I struggle with the idea of saying something that doesn’t feel banal in front of what is going on in the world. That might be the big question right now.

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• My work is a constant process of research. I don’t have a fixed practice that I repeat. Everything is evolving: what I do today will probably change tomorrow. At the moment, for instance, I’m focusing on natural dyes. Everything I do is tied together by a common thread, aesthetically coherent because it comes from me, from my life experience. As I live and go through life, I carry on the work, which becomes a sort of life diary. Since I started collecting fragments of earth, plants, minerals, I realized the importance of geography. In my works, I always mention the places where the materials were gathered. I’m not interested in the material for its own sake, but in the journey that led me to it—the discovery. Gathering becomes a pretext for exploring new places, traveling, being in nature. Over the past year, I’ve taken this research toward plant-based colorants, studying pictorial traditions and color theory. I wanted to go back to the source, to obtain materials directly from their origins. So I designed a small garden in my studio and started planting dye plants to extract pigments from them.

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• Residencies are always an important opportunity for me because they place me in a new context. Being at La Cap gave me the chance to explore not only La Capacciola itself but also the surrounding territories. This is a practice I carry out whenever I move. In the olive groves I've collected a sample of soil, which I’ve already started using in paper-based experiments. The earth I found in this area of the Valdichiana is dark brown, cold-toned—a rarity, as soils are usually warm, leaning toward orange or red. Not this one which had a cold tone instead. I took a small sample that I now keep, catalog, partly use, and partly preserve as documentation. I’m interested in creating a kind of mapping of all the places I visit and the elements I collect.

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• When I’m away from my daily routine, I develop habits. I wake up and work in the studio in the morning. In the afternoon, I often go exploring the area or drive around to observe the landscape and understand the territory. I also leave time just for thinking. A large part of my work is reflection. The practical part is infused with all the time spent thinking—reflecting on both conceptual and technical aspects.

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• For what I do, this residency location is ideal: immersed in nature, it allowed me to experience the outdoors intensely. I took advantage of the opportunity to work outside, but also indoors, with internet and other amenities that allowed me to carry on with reading and studio work in a relaxed way.