I was born on May 31st 1980 in the ceramic city of "Grottaglie", southern Italy, in the wonderful southern region of Puglia.

I am the third generation of a family of pottery tradition, grandparents and great-grandparents dedicated to pottery and earthenware decoration.

As a child I used to visit the workshop of my son-in-law Leonardo, nicknamed Puparieuddu, a potter of extraordinary precision that I recognise now after so many years. In the same workshop also worked Ugo Basile, father of the traditional decor of the "Gallo" of my village, one of the most skilled brushes in the history of ceramics in the city.

It was an immense world of teachers, and as a child I felt admiration for them. What a responsibility, wasn't it?

 

The middle school teachers saw in me skills in drawing, perhaps because they saw little skill in the other subjects. So almost by fate, the choice for high school was the State Art Institute, with a focus on ceramics, almost by inertia. At the age of 16, attending art school was almost an obligation for me, due to the weight of family tradition.

I met Paolo Follia, a classmate and great painter to whom I will always be grateful, with him I discovered the greatness of painting... and so painting was no longer just a family matter, it became a vocation.

I remember whole afternoons painting, both of us, and recording audio cassettes with stories of us becoming great artists.

 

I graduated and chose for my future a simple career: Art, enrolling at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lecce, a city renowned for its baroque and nicknamed the Florence of the South.
I began to study painting with Professor Luigi Spanó, an exceptional painter who left me a profound teaching on a human level, both as a teacher and as a person.

 

In October 2005, I moved to Barcelona, opening a new path towards the great cosmopolitan city. After some experiences in galleries such as Carré d'artistes, work as a portrait painter, I survived a few years as a waiter in a hotel, the path of a painter has its twists and turns.

Feeling that my Catalan period was over, I began a new adventure in Andalusia, where I discovered the centuries-old tradition of Nasrid ceramics, the last dynasty of the kingdom of Granada.
In the city of the Alhambra I decided to devote myself to painting.

By chance I found a pottery workshop in the bohemian district of Sacromonte, inhabited by pure gypsies, and as if by universal gift I began to experience sensations from my childhood, using a material familiar to me, clay.

 

Thanks to a craft fair in a small town in Cádiz called Zahara de los Atunes, known for its millenary tuna fishing. I decide to open a space for the public with a brand with its own identity, Me piace. The adventure begins in the Almadabra, playing and creating with the protagonist "The Tuna".

Productions of paintings and illustrations on wood, canvas and paper are born. The textile surface is added as inspiration, a new medium where I can express my ideas in a more graphic way, using the technique of manual silk-screen printing.

 

After several years and in parallel, and a turning point on a creative level, I open my studio shop "Sotto Scala" in 2016. Emotions and ideas take shape and become reality. My hands merged with the clay that was here to stay.

I buy the kiln, after a deep reflection and several attempts in the nonno's workshop, where every winter I used to prepare pieces in Italy to exhibit them in the summer season in Zahara's shop.

The studio shop becomes a workshop and exhibition atelier and with it a new door, the third dimension, sculpture, concentrating my work in a living space that is evolving, concepts and works.

 

With the passage of time a search beyond painting began, where I felt the need to experiment with other materials, to recover objects and give them an artistic and decorative meaning, the wood of shipwrecks from Africa arriving on the coast of Zahara, an inspirational muse for me.

 

Today I use different types of supports, shapes and dimensions in clay, terracotta, wood, paper and textiles. I work with engobes, low and high temperature glazes, ceramic polishes, oils and acrylics.

 

I conceive the creation of the whole as the transformation of the unique form, I orient my knowledge, hands, soul and humour to the service of artistic expression.