Basso has an idiosyncratic working method where he takes reference photos of his own sculptural objects, applies the photos to a 2D surface, and begins building the paint on top of that. The artist writes that this one developed from a strange little thumbnail scribble and then “…the title and idea of this piece ‘Odysseus’ grew organically and I began to see this figure as something alone and abandoned in some kind of wilderness… a barren expanse of what appeared to be dry grasses. The helmet-like head kind of suggested something almost ancient Greek; a warrior left behind to wander, a man at sea (the fish skeleton), or lost forever in time.”⠀
