Sigfrido Oliva has been a fixture in the Italian art community since the late 1960s. At nearly 82 years old, he’s still painting, etching, drawing, writing and teaching. A native of Messina, Sicily, he took a boat to Rome in his teens, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, put down roots in the city center and never left.

I had a great time studying under him a few years ago—he’s never one to let a joke go untold—and finally, post-pandemic, I got to visit him again. As usual in these interviews, I had specific questions about his practice and his past as an artist, but he had his own ideas about what’s important in a studio tour. So I followed him around in my stumbly Italian and enjoyed the chance to laugh with him again. (I’m sure I’m missing things in my ham-fisted translation.)

Find his work here.