If equipped with a deep artistic sensibility and spirit, however, the photographer is capable of entering into a sort of spiritual symbiosis with the subject, giving the portrait a strength that goes beyond technical, compositional and aesthetic mastery. In this sense the artistic photographs of Giuseppe Gradella offer a rare example of a highly successful mix of elegance and minimalism, traits which characterise all of his artistic production – from landscape photography to architectural or fashion shots.
His photographic portraits of women portray unprecedented images of faces and bodies that seem to be suspended in a delicate balance between the human body and time, an almost esoteric intimacy inserted in a context of harmonious figurative unity, in which it is impossible to separate one from the other.
“I am convinced that everything comes to light through successive overlaps, as in dreams, where, extremely naturally, the past and the present, the high and the low, the day and the night mix, where anything has meaning, without having a precise verse and gravity. I am interested in what comes to the surface from the deep, what the light tears in the dark. Mine is a declaration of love for photography, mine is a personal search for beauty. In this series of photos lies the attempt not to lose it, not to forget it, it is as if the distance of the glances, the immobility of the figures, their evanescence, became a window through which to look myself, beyond a glass wet with rain, breath held, in the futile attempt not to let one glance, and the distant crowd of days gone by, vanish. As distance is a fundamental parameter in photography, it is certainly also so in relationships between people, I think that sometimes having the opportunity to hide in some way, can become a way to be seen better on the inside. The faces and above all the gazes of these female figures may recall, in certain ways, some historical artistic portraits, especially those of the Italian Renaissance. With this historical identity I wanted to mix all our contemporaneity, perhaps hinted only by small details, but strongly present and manifest; here the wait, the collapse and the rebirth, are all one, as in dreams and memories, as in my constant and incurable nostalgia for the present.
I dedicate this exhibition to my family, to this moment, and that of the first day, the older I get, the more I understand that you have wonderful roots and fruits, as always I’m in the middle… somehow. ”
Giuseppe Gradella“
Italian Renaissance” Photography Exhibition by Giuseppe Gradella
30th November – 31th December 2018
at Multi.me Mantova Italy
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