SUSPENSA LEVISQUE

Photographic prints on canvas, 110x 175 cm, 2014-2016

A figure of a woman, lying on the ground, stands out against the horizon in the silence of the natural landscape.

On the horizon

The work consists of seven large photographic prints on canvas. The same figure of a woman lies on the line of the horizon, at the same point as the hills of Emilia Romagna, marking with her motionless body the transformations of time: earth and sky are mixed together, alternately closing in and moving apart with the seasons, but giving nothing away; the natural world is not able to claim the gaze of the viewer: lost in the void they remain indifferent. Nevertheless, the viewer is forced from the unemotional form, in all its unripe loveliness, towards the perceived space of the natural landscape, pushing forward through the body that seems poised to resist, in its absence.

Landscape with Figure

This work is designed to interact with the environment. Photo prints on canvas are designed as conversant entities, even when exhibited at a certain distance from one another. The natural background landscape, in its redundant simplicity, forces the viewer toward a synthesis: the viewer in fact replaces the reclining figure, laying down from time to time in the white snow or on the black earth, until the surroundings feel comfortable and a place of poetry rather than academic study.

A calendar year

These photographic prints on canvas were made during the course of a full calendar year. They constitute an atypical starting point for an impressionistic project: to photograph the same place at dusk, but at different times of the year. On this journey through time, the pose of the figure remains unchanged and other factors intervene from time to time to redefine the contours. First of all the light, which is in every shot, is the last light of the day, and is altered by climactic conditions: cloudier and murkier when overcast, sharper and more pervasive when reflecting snow. So the place does not change, but its definition does. The photos were not manipulated on the computer, but printed on the canvas: sacrificing image clarity has helped to give the work a decidedly pictorial aspect.