Salt, Sun, and Memory: My Mediterranean Childhood

To me, the Mediterranean isn’t just a place—it’s a way of seeing. Light warps reality, edges melt in the heat, and the horizon is always shifting. I don’t paint it as it is; I try to capture its restless mood, how it becomes sensation and memory, always a little off-kilter but deeply felt.

It all began with childhood summers on the Costa Brava—days spent playing alone for hours with the sand, my back tanned by the sun as I wandered rocky shores, a plastic little boat trailing behind me. Memories blur together: glimpses of fish and crabs beneath the surface, diving with mask and snorkel through shimmering water, the thrill of each new discovery. Port de la Selva’s white walls, crooked boats, and the clash of stone, sea, and sky felt exaggerated, as if reality had been supercharged by sun and heat.

Distortion, for me, isn’t a style—it’s how memory works. The Mediterranean in my mind stretches and overlaps, blurring boundaries. Perspective turns emotional. A coastline becomes movement and atmosphere, not just geography.

Painting, then, is a way to return—not to reconstruct, but to feel. The sea is never just blue; it’s vibration, reflection, and silence. Coastal buildings aren’t just structures, but stories shaped by light and time.

This Mediterranean lens is slow and attentive, letting things shift and blur. Childhood memory ditches precision for intensity. What lingers isn’t detail, but atmosphere—truth filtered through feeling.

Between memory and perception, distortion is its own clarity.