American Icons
An ongoing portrait series exploring the individuality, presence, and character of North America's iconic wildlife.
As an Italian who made America my home, I developed a profound connection to its wildlife. American Icons grew from a desire to portray these animals beyond their symbolic place in American culture, as individual lives, each with its own presence and character. Painting them is my way of looking closely at individual lives that deserve not only to be seen and remembered, but protected.
At a time when some of America’s most iconic wild animals are once again facing the loss of protections that allowed them to survive,
painting them has become, for me, an act of witness.