My Story
My bond with art began in childhood, in the quiet company of my father's collection of 'Macchiaioli canvases that lined the walls. But it was only when I rediscovered my grandfather's paintings, tucked away and long unspoken of, that I understood: I wanted to make art myself.
I never met him. And yet I chose to paint under his name — not his own, but an artistic alter-ego he used himself: Leonida Perdi. It’s a name borrowed from memory, a third presence connecting us as if, somehow, I have always known him.
Phylosophy
My work is an act of mixing: stories, techniques, and the perspectives of every place that has left something in me — and that I have left something in. I let them flow together until they settle into something singular, something whole.
Think of art as a mixture of winds. The Libeccio that shaped me on the shores of Tuscany. The Bise, cold and clarifying, that met me in my best years in Paris. The Shamal, carrying its dry heat across Riyadh, where I experienced growth and disbelief. And now, the Atlantic winds of New York City, pushing me toward whomever I am becoming next.
I believe in duality. Nothing and no one in this world can be reduced to a single label — we are each a Janus, two faces held in one being, looking backward and forward at once. Rage and peace, storm and sun, red and blue.
And what is art, if not this: the expression of the world’s extremes and dualities?