New Art Installation at Il Fondo Birreria in Recco

I’m incredibly happy to share that The Last Rider, a photograph created here in Recco, now has a permanent home at Il Fondo Birreria.

The installation is particularly meaningful to me because Fondo has become much more than somewhere I occasionally go for a beer. Since moving to Recco, it has become one of the places where I work, write, think, meet people and feel connected to the community around me.

So when I decided I wanted to give something back, photography felt like the obvious way to do it.

I chose The Last Rider, an image of a lone surfer catching one final wave as the light fades across the Ligurian Sea. The photograph has always represented something more to me than surfing. There is a sense of solitude in it, but also belonging, persistence and the instinct to return again and again to somewhere simply because being there feels right.

Those ideas felt particularly appropriate for Fondo.

For the installation, I created the work at 103.7 × 73.7 cm (40.83 × 29.02 in), making it the largest work of art I’ve created to date for display in a public place.

And I’m genuinely proud that the first place to display one of my photographs at this scale is here in Recco.

The piece was created specifically for Fondo and given as a gift to the people who have made it such an important part of my own experience of living here.

There is a much bigger story behind the photograph, the installation and why this particular place has become so meaningful to me.