I always tell that I started to paint by chance and that always by chance my fifirst painting was a Vesuvio. I tell it, but it’s not true. I started painting because I couldn’t help it. And I painted a Vesuvio because I feel I belong to this city to the point of confusing myself with it and using it as a me- ans of understanding myself. So in every explosion I put what I could not express in words: that deep and hidden self that is in each of us, what represents us as we really are but that we end up not listening because it is not compatible with social conventions, with the aspirations of others or with what we are used to thinking is “right”.

This unconscious awareness took shape on the canvas, flooding it with color, giving it life and overhanging the rest.
I escaped from Naples because I felt cramped and when I returned I idealized it, using it to somatize my demons. But now I know that using my city as a tool has made me always look at it through another, loving and hating it according to my moods. I can’t do this anymore. Along with all its contradictions, Naples has an energy and authenticity that I have not perceived anywhere else and that make me feel alive every time I get lost in its streets. Here there is still a genuineness that does not fifit into the hasty rhythm of the rest of Europe. The frenzy is there, but it is the will to live. And it’s a feeling that I feel is worth looking beyond, stopping judging this city and instead trying to accept its merits and flaws as I do with those I really love. I see its beauty, I recognize its impact on my life and I want to start from it again, trying, in my small way, to be the change that I have always demanded from Naples.

Statement issued by the artist as part of the project “Human of Naples” by Vincenzo de Simone.