Haec Hornamenta Mea (Ecce Pietro) - From "Magic Moments" Collection 2015

I never went to Art School, or academy.
There’s no artist in my family: I mean, they were all people who worked hard. My father was a worker in a paper factory, and my mother has fed the elderly in a nursing home for 25 years.
Painting is like watching from a balcony the world that goes unhurriedly to hell.
I never entered a contest, except for the one time when I won a small cardboard house as a snack contest prize. I never set it up, because it suddenly disappeared. My Grandmother had a closet for storing almost all my toys, fearing that I could break them; I guess it got into there. She kept the keys in her apron’s pocket. Then, one day, even my Grandmother disappeared…but not suddenly; leukemia worked on her slowly…
Painting is like looking at the fruit that rots in a cellophane bag.
I know a very few people; most of them are meaningless and irrelevant. People who I care about dropped dead, or got out of here, or I’ve never even met them. There are machinery so frail they need an impenetrable cloak.
Painting is like trying to forget your house key.
All I care about is the skin, what’s on the outside, the outer layer, the foil, the envelope, the peel…
Even the matter, the meat, would satisfy me… but less..
Rumor has it that appearances are deceptive; bullshit… they don’t fool anybody ever…
It’s just that observation skill, or the will, is missing. But if you’d be careful , you could find everything on display in the appearance.
The nearly imperceptible orgasmic click of your eyelid while you’re talking about us, or the cracked neurasthenic smile that’s opening up in your face and reveals you being so annoyed ‘cause somebody dared to question your silly splenitive orders, the steady hand that leads the suture nylon wire…That’s what I care about…
All the rest, the juice, the flesh, the big heavy thing, all that matters, whatever it’s worth…uh, I care about it too…but less…
Painting is like getting a blood test: you always hope everything is okay looking at the results. But it’s not always that way.
I’m someone who judges people. I even think it’s necessary. I judge, and I quite often condemn. Sometimes I’ve been judged and condemned too, but I’m not a vengeful man.
But I’m touchy…very touchy. That’s one of my greatest talents.
I’m past 50, and I’m still afraid of you. There’s no way out and, thank God, I never understood anything about life.
Painting is like sweating; it gets the toxins out of your body and make you thirsty.