La Musa dipinta, 2022

On a painter’s easel a gilded frame holds a collage with these same elements, set in a room outlined in perspective and associated with a female nude. “The Painted Muse”, which is taken from the Jean-Antoine Watteau’s painting titled Nymphe et Satyre, dit parfois Jupiter et Antiope (1715-16), holds with her left arm the image of Édouard Manet’s palette (some of the fragments from the same reproduction drop downwards). On the verso of the framed collage, a second collage features a cascade of blank sheets squared in pencil, and at the centre the photographic reproduction of a portion of the sky. Arranged all around there are other elements: a drawing of celestial orbits looks out from a passe-partout set down on the easel; some sheets of drawing paper and the photographic reproduction of a detail from the painting L’Empire de Flore (1631) by Nicolas Poussin are inside a print rack, while scattered on the floor are a gilded frame (propped up against the easel), antique prints, studies and projects, blank sheets, plexiglas sheets.
The homage to Painting – via the reference to the Masters of the past – is also an allegory of the artist in his studio, as he awaits the painting in its becoming.