What have I done in the last 15 years?

Nothing. I only know that at the end of September 1996 while I was in my studio eating a bunch of grapes I pulled off three grapes and I set them on my white table full of useful and unuseful things as usual. With that simple gesture my life has changed direction. Or maybe, wishing to change direction I made that gesture. Whatever it was, I shook the dark dust of “The untouchables” off and I moved “from hell to heaven” as my friend Anna said.

What happened that afternoon? I did a twirl and I moved from darkness to light. I opened my eyes on three grapes and I asked myself if through something very simple I could fulfill my passion. While eating my favourite fruit, three grapes fell and my brush made them sprout. To enhance all the grapes potential I relied on water. In fact since that day, here, sitting at my white table, my contact-clash with different waters has been taking place.

At first the brush controls small fluxes, trickles, then, water full of light and colour which before didn't exist, flows under my hand. This is how, three grapes, became a watercolour. The grapes came out from lights and shadows recollecting ancient remoteness. My place of origin. A nativity. Too much? Three grapes are still only three grapes. Almost nothing. Actually those three grapes – almost nothing – marked a revolution in me and on my view.

What I mean is that often we only see the surface of things: reality doesn't always appear the way it is. And what we see it often disappears, it doesn't stay with us. It doesn't hit us. My eyes that afternoon at the end of September, saw in those grapes something known, an old relationship. I recognized myself in them. From then on, guests appeared on my white table: wild small apples, oranges, tangerines, lemons, ancient roses, tulips, sage, arnica and many more became my botanical plates. From that afternoon my creative process starts at the outdoor market in front of the fruit and vegetables stalls: orange, green, yellow pyramids next to green and red prairies. There I choose my season fruit. My eyes are active, they see what I need – that one – and my hand chooses.

To represent my ancestors I don't need pyramids and prairies but a simple gesture that gather fruit or herbs, plants and flowers. From a fruit to a flower later I started to explore further. With a lens I have tried to reveal the smallest details of a natural intricate, bright world. At the same time I have continued to write manuscripts and wishing to put together in the same work, writing and the botanic vocabulary, I made big tables which recall antique miniatures. Today is the 4th of March 2009, it rains cats and dogs and here I am, still at the white table.