For someone living in north Italy, as I do, the alchemist's dream comes true every year, when the foggy grey lead of another cold winter turns into the sun blazed gold of summer.

The first time I saw the paintings of Joy Liberman my mind went back to those golden Sundays of my youth, when I used to bike on hot, dusty country roads, or to lie down in the shade of a tree near my aunt's farm, reading a comic book while my Dad tried in vain to grow a vegetable garden.

Alas, my youth has long gone now, but Italy is still a land of golden summers, where white and dusty country roads can really blind you if you are so reckless as to walk along them on a hot Sunday noon.

And Joy, as you can see, understands it.