Salvatore Zofrea The brother-in-law

Both the artist, Salvatore Zofrea, and the sitter, Peter Muriniti, were born in Borgia, Italy, in 1946 and 1929 respectively. Muriniti married Zofrea’s sister and they migrated to Australia in 1964.

Zofrea has known Muriniti since childhood and has an intimate understanding of this brother-in-law whom he describes as 'a moody character with a lot of presence’. At the time this portrait was painted, Muriniti was a pensioner but Zofrea depicts him as the labourer he had been in his younger years, complete with 'his blue labourer’s singlet’, which Zofrea believes allows him to present 'a raw and honest portrait of an ordinary man’. 'I have stripped the person down to the bare bones because people like him have made life much better for others because of the work they have done,’ he says.

Zofrea has only just begun to use black in his palette and he now feels comfortable using it to dramatise the mood of the subject. From his work on frescoes he has incorporated marble dust into his paintings in order to give 'a marvellous texture and quality to the surface’.