BREAD AND STORM 50x150 Oil on canvas 2017

The title is taken from Stefano Benni's book PANE E TEMPESTA (2009)

In the novel, Grandfather Sorcerer says: “…and for us every day is precious, and we have our stories, and we know how to mend things – you do not.

And even when the wind blows against us, we have always eaten bread and storm, and we shall get through this one too”

“Grandfather Sorcerer is preparing for the great farewell, which is not only his own but that of a world struggling to remain an active part and the memory of its land, and which feels the threat of the oblivion to which a short-sighted idea of modernity is condemning it. Good keeper that he is, he still manages to pass on to those who come after him his most important teaching: “No monster is worse than the one that hides. And no crime is worse than that of the strong against the weak. Cursed be the one who takes your water away, who robs you of your bread, who takes your freedom from you. Your country has known injustice and crime, and has served monsters whose claws were called authority, party, divine investiture or the favour of the people. Others will come, hypocritical, smiling monsters, but sooner or later they will all end the same way. They will rot in the deep well of history. You must not obey them, you must not become like them. But days will come when the well is almost empty. You will have to lower the bucket many times, to wait and to fight, until you find the precious water for those who need it. They will tell you the water is elsewhere, that there are easier ways to get it, they will sell you the water of oblivion or poisoned water, they will kill you saying the water is theirs alone. But keep hope, come back every night, lower the bucket and hold on, do not be afraid.”

The theme of the novel is Resistance: fighting to resist not Change, which is a constant of time, but the sacrifice demanded by those who ride it for their own ends: conformity to models imposed from above, the erasing of conscience and of the capacity for critical thought.