Pencil on Boesner Paper
2021 / 21×30 cm

This little child sitting in the shade by the sea is me at the age of five. The place is Nettuno (Rome), about 80 km from Frosinone, where my parents moved in 1959 and lived at the time because of my father’s new job. Coincidentally, Nettuno is where they first met when they were little children themselves.

I’m sitting on the legendary towel of my childhood (and of my siblings’) which was always deployed on beaches. It was a terrycloth towel with colored stripes of white, blue, light blue, black and red. Amazing enough, a piece of it still survives almost 60 years later. I could find it recently somewhere in my parents’ house and now is in my possession.

All in all, I feel a strong connection with this picture because it evokes a lot of positive memories.