BIO

I was 2 years old when I first escaped from my crib

A curious baby as I was, I couldn't stay inside my barred crib until one of my parents decided it was time to take me out. It was early in the morning, and I was ready to do some exploring.

I was very quiet as a child, so I managed not to wake up my mom and dad while I was starting what was going to become my first piece of art. Somewhere around the living room I had stumbled upon a nice, big, permanent marker. I popped it open, and decided to use it.

As all children are, I was very proud of anything I was able to create myself ( I still am today). So once I felt that my work had been done, I wandered into my parents room and stood, marker in hand, right in front of my mother's face. Her eyes eventually opened and I greeted her with a very big smile. She was shocked to see my face covered in black lines ( I must have had some issues opening the marker).

"Salvatore, what have you done?"

It turns out that I had decided to walk all around the living room and dining room with the marker extended, scarring anything in my way. The white walls, the grey sofa, the dining room table, the minibar my dad had just made out of pine, the TV set - you name it. Everything that was half a meter off the ground had now been marked for eternity.

I guess that's when my mom realized that I had some artistic blood in me. She made the most of it, and decided to invest time and money into my artistic education. I wouldn't be creating this website if it wouldn't have been for all her patience and effort.

Fine Arts or Aeronautic Engineering?

It's quite hard to keep up with your artistic side once school reaches an end and you need to choose your career path as a teenager. Your parents are worried about you getting a good job and securing your future, so we generally drop the idea of becoming an artist, a musician or even opening our own coffee shop because it's just not going to get you a stable job.

Years went by and I eventually became an Aeronautic Engineer, listening to my parent's advice to not go down the Fine Arts path. I do not regret this decision, since it gave me that stable job that we are all looking for, and enough money to pay for art supplies if I wanted to paint.

But years went by and not much painting happened. I was occupied with work, moving from Madrid to Toulouse and from Toulouse to Hamburg. I never really dedicated that extra time to myself, to my creative me. I did paint one thing here and there, but nothing constant. The spirit of the wall-marking kid was just not there anymore.

Recent inspiration

It wasn't until quite recently that I felt inspired to paint again. Going to a watercolor academy as a teenager, I had been taught a certain style of watercolor painting, but now I wanted to start in my own way. I wanted to paint what I really liked. No more boring landscapes, houses on a hill or snowy forests.

It was painting what I loved that inspired me the most. A lover of vintage and retro years, my subjects became painting old Vespas, beat up cars, worn out shoes, coffee shops and, most recently, plants and interiors. I have also walked away from the fear of painting people, and started doing so this year.

Urbansketching has also motivated me to take that travel-book with me and paint during my travels, or just while waiting for one of my friends to finish his coffee in a cute terrace.