Quattro generazioni

This work depicts my grandmother Angelina holding my daughter Sara, who was then only two weeks old, in her arms. The photo is 34 years old. Four generations between the loving face of the old lady and the face of the newborn, symbolizing the continuity of family and life.

With the monochrome background in gold leaf, I wanted to represent the sacredness of all elderly people.  I could have painted the faces of the characters in a stylized manner, but instead I wanted to use a photograph of a specific person to emphasize the role and importance of the elderly in the individual history of each of us.  Today’s society seems to focus on efficiency, productivity and the cult of youthful image forgetting that the wealth of experience passed on by older people is the treasure on which the growth of future generations is based.

The elderly represents the family and collective memory. Both for their care and love and for their teaching. They are the bridge that allows us to know the past to project ourselves into the future. In the gaze of the elderly woman there is the benevolent transmission of all the knowledge acquired over a long life, not only the cognitive knowledge, but above all that of her own human experience.