“There’s something magical about painting. I remember my relatives, my aunt and uncle had a cheesy painting they bought on one of their trips to Italy and brought back with them. A scene of Venice with some clown holding balloons or something, but done in such an odd way and they had it right in the doorway of their house. Every time we went to their house for dinner and we were leaving, everyone was kind of gathered around putting their shoes on and jackets on and the painting just happened to be right there at eye level so it always generated some discussion. My uncle loved it, my cousin hated it, my dad didn’t like it so it just got this freakish conversation about art going. And I don’t know but that kind of stuck with me. Why did the artist paint the balloons in quite that way, there was one balloon that was just black and looked like a hole in the painting. We just talked about whether that was deliberate or not, was that just bad painting, was that what the artist intended to do? That just stuck with me… I guess this stuff just comes unexpectedly sometimes.”

- Ivano Stocco