• Title: Courtship
• Medium: Oil on Canvas
• Size in Centimeters: 80 x 120
• Year: 2020 - 2025
• Made in: Rome, Italy
• Private Collection

A Note on Courtship

This painting began back in 2020 when my good friend and model of many years, Giulia S., came to the studio to purchase a painting I had made of her back in 2012. There was just one problem: the painting had ‘melted’. Why that happened is a good question; I have a variety of theories. Regardless, the painting wasn’t salvageable, so I offered to repaint it.

A year passed and I realized the image I was copying wasn’t up to the standard of the paintings I had made since. I suggested it would be better to make a new painting and she agreed. She came into the studio and I took photos.

I worked on the painting intermittently—using the photos, referencing other paintings, inventing when possible—but I wasn’t able to find my feet. More years passed.

Near the middle of 2024, I called the ‘bat phone’: he made it immediately clear I needed to get her back in the studio and work on the drawing. Giulia was kind enough to do so; many sittings followed.

Working from life changed everything: not just the drawing, but the spirit of the process. Each sitting was a new opportunity; a new wave to catch and ride for as long as it would take me. (For one of those sittings, she brought with her a pomegranate she had picked that day from her garden.)

My sincere thanks to Giulia for her infinite support and encouragement and her extraordinary patience. Finalmente, ce l’abbiamo fatta.

Finally, as part of my Graduate school exhibition in 1998, there was a painting also named “Courtship”. Twenty-seven years later, the reuse of that title seems appropriate.