“If an idea binds this work together, it would be the feeling of vastness and the act of searching through immense open spaces, be they physical or introspective. There's a feeling to a dream, even in the day, a quiet echo on the edge of a deep canyon you know could go on forever, but it remains opaque and uncertain. It’s the feeling I try to capture and reflect in the work. The essence of each moment of a piece is shrouded in saturated color, and focused more on raising questions than providing answers. I create the story as I go, rather than try to tell it perfectly from beginning to end, like intuitively letting the work tell me where it wants to go. In this way, the paintings act as a lens of fragmented ruminations between the conscious and unconscious, between memory and airy fabrications.

I take inspiration from the world at large. My work is usually inspired by other artists' work, films, music, and many lived experiences in my travels over the years. I’ve always loved surrealism in various forms. I strive to use the fundamentals of design, to learn and understand them better through my work, hopefully to create something that will grab you visually and adhere itself to your memory once you’ve left. I also enjoy the physicality of working with paint and various surfaces. Even though there are certainly more efficient ways of creating these images that would be more free of error. It is the practicality and imperfection that bring the pieces more power and beauty.

Although this collection is a work of fiction, I find that many of the scenes end up being reflections of the many travels I’ve made in my life. I remember taking road trips when I was a kid across the country. Seeing the ocean for the first time, lighthouses in Michigan, mountains in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the canyons of Arizona, and peaks of Colorado, all of which have made an imprint on who I am. The paintings act as a lens of fragmented rhumenations in the space between the conscious and unconscious. I feel I am only at the beginning of the ideas I want to explore, and I want to leave behind a mosaic of work that spans time, feeling, and distance, and I plan to spend the next several decades working to that end.”


- Sergijoe Villani