What led you to undertake this research? 

 It was the desire to isolate colours from the objects and shapes they belong to, and to show them, as it were, in their essence. Colours are one of the basic attributes of landscape. Usually, though, we don't observe colours as such. Rather, we observe coloured objects and shapes. One could even claim that colours are an abstraction, a concept, I find.

How and when did you conceive of your idea? 

 I had the feeling that I should photograph colours a few years ago, while I was working in the Stura Valley. But it was in the Onsernone Valley that I began the project, in 2008, while shooting for Apparent immobility. The two series of images are therefore closely related. That's why the exhibition also includes an image from Apparent Immobility.

How did you create these images technically?

 In most cases, just by bringing the lens close to the subject and blurring the image. Blurring is the technique that allowed me to isolate colours. Also, getting closer beyond a certain point, it is impossible to focus with the naked eye. Shapes lose their contours, and all that is left are clouded outlines, and more or less uniform chromatic backgrounds. In some cases, when shooting subjects from a certain distance, I used only blurring.

So, the works shown in the gallery are just ordinary photographs? Did you print the images just as is, or were they digitally re-touched?

 The works on display are prints of digital images. There has been no re-touching. Obviously, the colours reproduced by photographic means differ from the colours we perceive. Each technical step (shooting, editing, printing) inevitably implies certain transformations, some of which are independent of the artist's will. Photography depends largely on the techniques that are used. They deeply influence its language and aesthetics.

Were you inspired by anyone?

 I think I've been influenced by the work of Mark Rothko, which I had a chance to admire in the great monographic exhibition at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, in 2007. I've also been influenced by the work of Phil Sims, which I discovered while visiting the contemporary art collection of the Villa Panza in Varese. The large-scale monochrome and polychrome paintings by these two great American artists have made a deep impression on me, and they've encouraged me to lead my own chromatic research.