This afternoon a friend stopped by, and noticed a painting hanging on my living room wall. Amongst the surroundings of my otherwise abstract art is a painting I titled Fortezza. It started as a real abstract, but I turned it upside down, painted more layers, and as it resolved itself, it became clear that it was functioning more as an architectural landscape, and so I went with it.
The more I looked at this painting, it seemed familiar, and looked like some sort of castle or fortress. I thought about the places I'd been, and realized this is the big castle next to the docks in Naples, Italy. I had been there a few years ago, but I hadn't taken a photo of it. After an online search, indeed, It is Castel Nuovo!
It's interesting to me how memories, dreams, images, and places creep into the psyche and come out on canvas. It's happened many times, completely unintentionally, but it's become very clear to me that all the traveling that I've done, for work or pleasure, especially Europe, has a very big influence in how and what I paint.
FORTEZZA, 24X36", ACRYLIC. I painted this, and Castel Nuovo, pictured below, in Naples, Italy, which I had seen a few years before. I hadn't taken a photo of this castle, and I was painting on this canvas upside down till the very end.
