The ‘Infinite Painting’ began in about 2006 in a dark corner of my studio. At first it was simply a 50 x 40 cm canvas on which I cleaned my brushes or tried out shapes that came into my head, each time covering up and cancelling out every trace of my artistic thoughts. This went on for a few years without me knowing what it would become. Then, at a certain point, the canvas began to become almost exclusively the repetition of a monochrome image. Every day a different colour was added and, due to the accumulation of the paint substance, it had become so heavy that it could no longer be supported by a simple pair of nails on the wall. That’s when I decided to move it, building an easel and a case to protect it. That was when, in 2012, I called it the ‘Infinite Painting’, imagining it would be a painting that would be with me for the rest of my life. (I would like to reiterate here that every statement contains the possibility of being reversed at any time.)
In a progress from one object to the other, the materials used in its construction (plated Tanzanian walnut slats that are 2.5 cm thick with a steel AISI 308 border measuring 1 x 1 cm) were also used in the ‘Diarytheque’ to create a continuity between one thing and the other.
Until 2018 the structure of the base was slender, balanced by four tie-rods. Then, under the weight of the paint that continued to grow, it became too weak and could no longer hold it upright. It was then that I made a new modification, cutting the tie-rods and making the pedestal sturdier. At the same time, I attached the frame directly to the case through screws, eliminating the support which had made it thicker, because the paint was beginning to get so thick that it risked touching the doors to the case.
It underwent a further change, as did the other ‘Archivers’, in 2020 after the acqua alta flooding of 2019. Due to a fear that subsequent floods could damage the object, I created a raised pedestal that on the one hand raises the niche for the painting to a dimension that is slightly more monumental, and on the other, as soon as it aligns with the platform, allows it to go back to being the anthropomorphic object that – like a person – relates to my forms.
On 23 March 2021 while I was moving it so that the photographer could document it, it lost its balance and fell on me, or rather it fell on me and the ‘Sedimentation 2017 #2’. It was this ‘Sedimentation’, which suffered a 20-cm tear, that broke its fall and saved it.
 
(Written in 2021)