Still life with Panama Hat

Every day in the Northern Territory there is a new sunset, an endless cycle of new colours.

50x40cm
June 2020

When I arrived in Darwin, Australia, I didn't expect to find a sun with such insidious rays. To take shelter from the tropical, hot and dry days of the Dry Season in the Northern Territory, the first solution was to buy a Panama hat. This hat has accompanied me during my daily walks, especially those in the afternoon which, almost every day, lasted until sunset.

This corner of Australian territory gives us such priceless sunsets. In particular, along the coast of Darwin, the sun, through the natural moving of the clouds, projects its rays beyond the horizon, up to the last flashes of light. Especially on the inlets of Cullen Bay, Mindil Beach and Nightcliff, my very favourites. It was the latter that inspired my "Still life with Panama Hat".

Every day in the Northern Territory there is a new sunset, an endless cycle of new colours. During one of these sunsets I stopped and sat with my feet on the sand, which emerged from the low tide, to observe a couple of lovers (pictured here with two red capsicums) who, near the shore, toasted with a glass of red wine. The lights of this magnificent sunset melted in their glasses, setting them towards the horizon as if they were two rubies. I started imagining that that wine was from Chianti, just like the Chianti I used to sip when, during the ten years I lived in Tuscany, I was going to the Arno river’s banks to admire the colours of Florence at sunset.

At the two ends of the composition there are two leaves. On the left a large leaf of "Monstera Deliciosa" to represent the transience of life, on the right instead a leaf of "Frangipani" (Plumeria) that refers to a new day, a new life. In fact, although fallen from the branch, it resists with just that much sap that allows it to give birth to a new plant, a new day, a new love. Could it not be the transition to a new artistic path that, in this particular period of my life, led me to become so passionate about such a distant and different land from mine?

ITALIAN VERSION