The Imagination of a Child

« It took me several years to write my first statement, not because I had nothing to say about my thoughts and my philosophy, but because perhaps the latter did not have the roots and convictions that it now seems to show me.

Now, from the moment I decided to follow that vocation, I immediately turned my attention to an introspective path. My first works “as a professional artist” (at least that’s how I consider them) were mainly dictated by restlessness and intolerance, by my need to talk to myself before the outside world.

Let’s start from the beginning…. I realized since I was a child that I loved art, in all its expressive forms. The decision to be an artist therefore does not derive from a choice referring to a “profession” but rather from the choice whether or not to manifest my true state of being to the world… and yes, because “being an artist” after all it does not mean anything. The artist does not decide to be sensitive and creative. The artist is born sensitive and creative. The artist decides at a certain point in his life to cultivate an innate passion: that of getting excited, of metabolizing these emotions, of expressing them on a canvas or on the shapeless matter in front of him, of feeling shy in front of his unfinished work, of modifying himself while he creates and models, to feel satisfied at the moment of completing his own “creature”. For me this means “making art”, both in the physical and digital fields. »

The view of the Outside World
« After this period, I began to deal with the outside world in a more serene way. And it was then that I decided to represent the world around me and the life scenes that surrounded me with contemporary works of art related to everyday life. This evolutionary process was also accompanied by an expressive synthesis, which translated my art from abstract/conceptual art to informal and cubist art. In this process, sometimes accompanied by parentheses of hyperrealism and surrealism, the love for mathematics and geometry led me to synthesize the world around me through the composition of simple polygons, a need that I still carry with me both in the pictorial component than in the sculptural one. »

Harlequin in the Land of Giants is contemporary art painting made oil on canvas by the italian artist, painter and sculptor Cesare Catania
Conscious introspection
« Subsequently I once again felt the need to return to the path of introspection, but this time with a greater awareness, with the feeling of being able to look inside myself again, however equipped with a superior artistic baggage compared to the first years of “artistic immaturity”. Of course, I’m always looking for new forms of expression, so I would say that I still consider myself “immature” but, given how I am, I will probably consider myself that way forever… »

Art as a "means" rather than an "end"
« However, there was a moment when I realized that the art I produced was no longer just aimed at itself. When I started painting the ultimate goal of my artistic production was the art itself that I produced. I like to look for chromatic and aesthetic harmony in the paintings and sculptures I created and I was exclusively concerned that this artistic expression was the complete manifestation of my “deepest self”. At a certain point, however, I began to worry not only that the work created had its own balance in space and time but I began to give more importance to the message it conveyed. For me, art began to no longer become the ultimate goal of my attention but rather the means through which to transmit messages of positivity. Hence the firm belief that the artist has a higher task than simply that of painting and sculpting. The artist has the task of communicating. »