Homage to Pieter de Hooch

          After seeing Pieter de Hooch's paintings, I decided to visit the Netherlands. Then, my first impression was that the scenes represented in his paintings, just as Vermeer’s paintings, are the settings of long closed theaters, where the characters had left and the scenery had been dismantled.
          Surprisingly, I woke up one day in the middle of their works, stepping on the same paving stones where they stepped, touching the same walls made of bloody red bricks. Even the characters seemed to be the same, only the costume designer seemed to have been fired.
This is what inspired me to make this painting. I wanted to recreate the fascinating world of de Hooch, while opening a gate to the modern world; to show that even in the modern hectic life, if you enter a small courtyard in Delft you can find the people of de Hooch’s world. It’s a world that, even with a wide perspective of today’s life, prefers to regain its energy and strength in yesterday...