Italy 2025

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People cling to the old. Objects from decades or even centuries past are preserved, tattered and worn, yet sanctified as culture. At certain moments in natural history, a confluence of factors gave rise to eras of prosperity that seem all but unsurpassable. And so it becomes a convenient strategy for vulnerable modern generations, generation after generation, to live off the legacy of their ancestors. Yet we ought not forget who it is that craves permanence, who yearns for stability. At its core, much of human endeavour boils down to interest — that stark two‑letter word written plainly across the faces of those who hold vested gains.

Be that as it may, humanity is a species hard‑wired for ideals and for the future. We perpetually crave revolution, yet shrink from paying its personal price. This fundamental contradiction renders reality tattered and fetid, reeking all around, akin to hell itself.

Italians harbour a kind of delusion, or perhaps a conceit instilled in them over centuries. They wander streets laid out by their forebears, patching and repairing endlessly. Figures from old paintings seem to mock the present world. Though in their own time, those people too lived with pent‑up anger and hardship, they were arguably less afflicted than modern humanity by hubris and mental affliction.

I remain merely a detached wanderer. I observe, reflect, paint haphazardly, a walking wraith. I still cannot bring myself to love this absurd world.