Pasta a la Prima

2025 / Oil painting on panel

I painted Pasta a la Prima in a single sitting, using the alla prima approach (painting in a single sitting) and limiting myself to the Zorn palette.

Working this way felt like a reset. After a year of running Brasserie Onni, most of my attention had been on the restaurant, my design work, and the day-to-day work of keeping everything moving. Painting had been pushed aside. This piece was a way back into the practice.

The constraints helped. A restricted palette, wet paint on a simple panel, and no room for endless corrections. It forced me to stop chasing a perfect image and instead respond to what was happening on the surface: the warmth of a plate of pasta, the gesture of grating cheese, the small moments that make up a service.