Studio
On the process
The studio is a former rail freight depot at the Chiasso yard, three hundred metres from the Italian border. Concrete floor, high north windows, a loading door that no longer opens. Trains pass through all day carrying goods between two countries. Nothing stops here any more.
The work is slow. A painting begins as a drawing no larger than a hand, and stays that size for weeks while the shapes are moved. Only when nothing else can be taken out is it scaled up to linen. Colour is mixed in small batches and used the same day. There are rarely more than four.
Oil goes on in thin flat passes, each left to dry before the next. Wherever a division is needed, the linen is simply left bare — the gaps in the work are not painted, they are what was never covered. Nothing is varnished. The surface stays matte, and the weave keeps showing through.
On what is left out
A painting is finished when taking out one more shape would make it unreadable, and adding one would make it explain itself. That point arrives earlier than expected. Most of the work is in stopping.
