THE STRUGGLE OF JACOB the-struggle-of-jacob | Page 16

My own personal journey, in brief, exemplifies this.
I was born in 1952 in Fossano, in the Province of Cuneo.
For as long as I can remember, I have been a visionary, with
many interests, and always creative.
I studied Mathematics at the University of Turin. At the age of
24 I turned to Art, taking up the profession of graphic designer
and painter for ten whole years, many of which I spent living in
Brazil. My points of reference in this initial phase (basically
apprenticeships) were pop art and hyperrealism - for that was
the moment in history - which culminated in my first original
cycle of 220 panels in the “imaginary poetic” style, the Project
for the Reconstruction of the Tower of Babel.
And here I want to recall two Masters who have profoundly
influenced my life choices and my artistic direction: Ilio Burruni
and Luiz Hamen.
Back in Italy I encountered Gnomonics, the art of building
sundials, which, for the purposes of survival, became my main
professional activity for 25 years. Meanwhile, free painting
quietly continued its course, above all on the front of abstractism,
along with the rest of my eclectic creative output. In 2012, when
I was 60, I decided to bring the free painting to the fore.
Beyond the professional dimension, I have always interpreted
my artistic journey as an inner path. Since 1998 I have been a
Buddhist monk in the Zen tradition.
In order to illustrate my pictorial language, the following
series are some of my work currently running in parallel.
The I KING (I CHING), the ancient Chinese Book of Changes:
my intention is that of representing its 64 hexagrams, that is, all
the combinations of 6 whole lines (yang) or broken lines (yin),
the emblematic range of existential circumstances.
These paintings, acrylic on canvas, are of various dimensions, up
to 100 x 150 cms. I am currently at the halfway stage of this work.