I don’t like talking and even less writing about myself but someone has to do it, so here goes. They say I was born or at least conceived on a local train that perhaps was leaving from the South for Sicily. In any case , in Calabria, a wonderful area surrounded by two seas, close to the Greek myths and winds from North Africa. Perhaps through fate actually close to Mimmo Rotella’s home and for years my dear school friend was called Rotella. But apart from this story nothing links me to that artist other than that we were both born in the same town. From when I was a restless, rebellious child I spent the time drawing , writing, and reading adventure stories. Already at the age of nine I was signing myself "Hector" under the influence of distant French relatives and Napoleonic descent
(on my mother’s side). One part of my genes comes from Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer, in the Var area but many years have past and nothing remains except my love for France and, of course, for Italy.

As a child of about 12-13 I had my first theatrical experiences and in the school gym I held my first painting exhibition, all works based on a clown. In the circus I had some acrobatic experience but soon gave it up. Then came my second exhibition at the Ceravolo culture centre where a dear female friend from Cagliari was working and I showed African women and Tuareg warriors. I was about 15 years old at that time.

From this peaceful period I still have many works, in oils on canvas and on tar paper. In the meantime I made my first trips to Nice, Belgium, Venice and Savona.

In 1975 I lived for a period between Naples and Rome and in the following year some time at Vairo, near Parma and then Modena. In 1977 I settled in Florence, but many difficulties forced me to go and live with a friend in Bologna. Together we attended a corse on sculpture and the avant-garde theatre. Later in a serious accident I lost my friend from Bologna and went back alone to Florence. I worked day and night and studied at the Faculty of Science and Mathematical Physics while continuing to paint and write. I decorated my first house in Dada style. I took part in casting for the cinema and theatre roles. In these years I moved to Paris, driven always by strong artistic restlessness. I got to know a great Algerian love, artists of French Nouveau Réalisme and other artistic currents. I lived in Montparnasse and often had mixed exhibitions of my work and wrote a novel set in France.

I enlarged stamps, retouching them with tempera and then I sold them along the Seine. I also visited Mauberge, Lille, Bruges and Ostend. I got to know actors, other artists and writers; I presented books and took part in both publicity spots and films and I developed my first collages on posters for the Gioconda of Ponchielli. In 1992 I also began travelling to Hungary, where I met the mother of my second son, a beautiful, romantic art historian who graduated in Budapest. I also travelled in the South of France, in the Var area and in Provence. Not to neglect the East I made an historic trip by car that lasted months as far a Tehran, going through Istanbul and Greece with a Canadian friend. In 1986, still in Florence I graduated in the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy where in the meantime my first, dearly loved son Jonas was born. I took a house in Chianti near Ghirlandaio’s Last Supper, beside the house of Domenico Cresti called the "Pissignano". Art was still following me and I spent happy, peaceful years and then still in these magical, joyful places like fireflies in June, they became sad all of a sudden and among these vineyards I lost my son while my second one, Edmond, was born.

I took up sailing again, another of my great loves, and I wrote articles published in magazines and books and founded a small publishing firm and in the meantime I presented a big exhibition in the Museum of San Zeno Cathedral at Pistoia, works on canvas devoted to space, the galaxies with homage to Masters of the Florentine Renaissance. Some pictures were sold to the U.S. and Japan while the Mondadori Group of Milan published some of my novels. I went to Segrate and was amazed at the offices with such Hollywood looking lakes.

I am still interested in contemporary art and I continue to decorate houses in Dada style, filling them with paintings and books. I made other trips to Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic. In Germany I saw the Berlin Wall come down. My son and I were there in front of it at dawn, having slept in the car, with two steaming coffees in papercups and unforgettable emotion. Thank you, Gorbaciev and thank you, Woityla.

For some years and for family reasons I alternate my stay between Pisa, the South of France and Budapest. Recently also my father has died. I dedicated the exhibition I had in Budapest to him. I have omitted many events linked to the survival of me as a man, an artist or a writer, because that alone could become a book. But you should know I haven’t denied myself anything and up to now life has not all been an easy ride.

translated by Robert Learmonth

Eclektica Gallery