Its easy to refer to one of Paolo Quaresima’s pictures as a ‘still life’. Because still life is the genre to which these compositions – of objects from everyday life – are most generally matched. Yet, however convenient, the truth lies a rather long distance from this definition.

The works of Quaresima are environments, glimpses, theatres. Staged representations in which man, despite being a constant presence in the frame, is invisible, absent, “as if he has just left”.

It is in the cracks, in the damage, in the signs of use and wear that the signs of man can be recognised, in this way, he underlines the dialectic between an object and its function, beneath which all of the fascination with everyday life forces its way out.