The photographs depict a subjective vision of harmony, an harmony that is dominated by the
Sicilian countryside, Silent places of refuge, where slow and almost static pastures paint
the wonder.
The preference for black and white is dictated by the personal need to emphasize the subject
observed, allowing, according to my point of view, the exaltation of the form. Sometimes the
light seems violent to me, as if to emphasize the same dissonance of the place where it rests. It is the case of volcanic land, dominated by the Etna eruption, on whose slopes cattle graze in complete harmony with the surrounding landscape. Even casual death looks magnificent: the fumes of the volcano provide nutrients to the soil, allowing the development of plant organisms and the
subsequent scratch of cattle. The volcanic earth is here the emblem of the dualism that governs
nature: it is fertile, but hostile, ancient and dark like the arms of death.
It is apparently a detachment, but behind it lies a refined ancestral harmony: the earth is the cradle
of life and at the end of this, it wraps you, returning you to the landscape.
Other times, the light allows itself to be quieter, softer, able to veil the subjects, homogenizing them to the landscape. The photos taken in Ragusa arouse this feeling, as well as the donkeys of Favignana that tired and continuously facing the sun, lay on the sandy soil, while behind them the distant castle of Saint Catherine seems to watch them; or even the rusty insignia of Palermo’s countryside, whose old road signs lead me to think the overbearing intrusiveness of man as a remote memory;
same goes for the ruins of Vendicari, here you can see two men, one of whom is disguised
among the shrubs, while the other holds a branch with his hand and seems intent on peering out into the sea which is out of the shot. Even the man here appears to me in complete harmony with the bare landscape.
But places that I certainly feel closer are those not yet described, those in which I was born:
Ragusa’s landscapes. I often take a walk through its countryside where the wise farms blend with carob trees, olive and cattle, in a cathartic rock landscape. Often I see trees whose weaves seem intent on rising to heaven, and then returning to the earth, as is they wished to express love. The dark crowns of the carob trees emerge firmly between the boundaries bordered by the clear
dry stone walls. One of them, in particular, fascinated me: the branches bent trembled, shook
from a slow breath that seemed to dissolve elsewhere, far away. And his whole figure seemed to accommodate that caress, while the delicate air carried the light rustle freed from the grass. The landscape seemed to dance, giving the observer a triumph of peace and harmony, housed in the place of refuge that for me is the countryside.
