I started drawing as soon as I was able to hold a pencil in my hands. However, while growing up, I followed my parents’ and relatives’ advice that art does not bring bread to the table. Hence, I focused my studies on scientific subjects, although it didn’t feel like the right path. I finally gave up on “science" when I quit Aeronautical engineering at university in 1994.
In the meantime, I had been drawing and painting and I finally enrolled in an art conservation course in Rome: that change of direction lead me to Mustang (Nepal) in 1999 restoring Tibetan Buddhism art in a prestigious project sponsored by the American Himalayan Foundation.
Up there on the Himalaya I started drawing and painting Newari and Tibetan art copying the masters’ works during my free time. In 2008 I started studying thangka painting with Mukti Singh Thapa, a world-famous Nepalese artist who joined the Mustang project for one summer. Since then, he became my mentor and source of inspiration for the years to come until fate brought me back to Europe in 2017.
Furthermore, I have been directing the reconstructions of missing wall paintings in Tubchen monastery in Upper Mustang from 2011 until 2018. From 2019 until 2021 I worked on the last drawings needed for the completion of the same reconstruction project.
Currently I’m a freelance based near Cologne, Germany, working on photography, painting and conservation.