I am a first-generation Sicilian-American, born in Brooklyn, who came of age in New York when the Bronx was burning, the SAMO tag appeared on the sides of trains, and Keith Haring worked the black paper billboards of the West Fourth St-Washington Square subway station. My work, freely expressed, often has a loud, colorful, graffiti-like quality, a bit like the melting pot atmosphere of NY in the 70’s and 80’s, and Palermo today.
I usually don’t work from a premeditated position but rather from a place of discovery and curiosity. I often see a tension and dynamism in my work that expresses my deepest feelings about the possibilities and stresses and strains of contemporary life for people, plants, animals and all sentient beings, as we try to move forwards together.
I work primarily in oil, oil stick and oil pastel on paper, canvas and panel. Though loose and mostly abstract, suggestive forms often emerge in my work intimating beings, peoples, animals, celestial objects, plants and more.
I am deeply concerned about the nature of the mind and its relation to the brain, especially in light of the rapid pace at which AI and all things digital are overtaking our mental and physical lives. In my artistic practice, as I am working, observing and making choices, I am also silently asking, am I, a human being with a mind, just a second-rate computer soon to be replaced by a newer and improved model, or is there something more this “I”, this mind, is capable of, and is it possible for something beyond the computational to be accessed and expressed through art?