In the Shadows draws on a moment I witnessed during a trip to Southern Italy. I watched a bar owner look quietly down the street after four men dressed in black had left, having come to collect what is known in Italy as pizzo — protection money.
The scene in the painting is imagined. Bar dell’Ombra — roughly translated as “Bar of the Shadows” — is a name I created for the place that existed in my imagination after witnessing that moment.
