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I’m the painter Salvatore Tonnara, from Amantea
I was born in 1943
The usual jobs never appealed to me.
I was a schoolteacher, I taught 6 years. I had a career, and then I left it.
I liked painting, I really enjoyed painting.
Painting has given me...
It gave me the freedom to do what I wanted,
to live freely.
One morning I’d paint
The next morning I’d take my bicycle into the country,
I’d spend the whole day reading, under the trees, with the birds singing.
Painting has never been like a job, oppressive,
at work at 8am, and you have to put in 8 hours of work a day. No, I was free.
This is why it was a great choice.
I enriched myself greatly- with art, painting.
For me, painting gave me…
it allowed me to enrich myself,
that’s it.
I’m not a rich man, I don’t have a lot of money. I survive, and I don’t need much to live.
This is why I´m so calm and tranquil.
I have a lot of joy inside, which shows in my paintings.
It’s wonderful to paint. In that moment you create, you make something.
You create something beautiful.
And my thoughts go to the great Creator of the universe, of life, which is God.
The best painter, the master, because he made all these beautiful things:
the universe, the planets, the sun, this great big universe, the colors-
everything comes from Him. We’re made in his image.
And we, in our own small way, are creators, too. We create.
I’ve always paid attention to color, because in the beginning, if I saw that a color wasn’t right
I’d ask myself: Why didn’t this color come out right, why isn’t it beautiful?
And so you have to discover for yourself- this is what’s beautiful about art-
you slowly come to see: Ah, this is the way to do it. This is how to make the color right,
this is the right method.
If I put a base color on a canvas, instead of leaving it white, a base color I invent.
When the color on a canvas is beautiful, be it figurative or abstract, the painting is worthwhile. That’s enough, it’s beautiful.
It’s the colors that matter. I’m a colorist: I love color.
Of Amantea, I love the sea, these little hills,
the new Road, where I take walks.
I’m Salvatore Tonnara, I´m a painter. I was born in Amantea in 1943.
We’ve all become more barbaric, I think. We’ve devolved, while they’ve gone ahead.
This is something I wanted to tell you.