Monica Silva
Picturesque
2014

About the Item

PICTURESQUE 2014 From “Caravaggio-Lux et Filum” project Print run 7+2PA Digital Photography Fine Art Print on Canson Infinity Platine Photo Rag , Epson UltraChrome K3 ink, plexiglass on alluminium dbond 3mm Each limited edition original photograph is printed in Italy under artist supervision in strictly limited edition, signed and certificated by the artist More sizes: CM 60X80 Print run 7+2PA (plexiglass on alluminium dbond 3mm) CM 30X40 Print run 10+2PA (unframed, in design folder) The reinterpretation of Caravaggio’s works is probably Monica Silva’s most organic attempt to translate Italian figurative culture into her own language. The photographer was directly inspired by some of Caravaggio’s most famous works, largely preserving the composition and layout, the cut and format of his paintings, but radically renewing the representation, thus escaping the clichè followed slavishly by many photographers who compared themselves with the realist paintings of the Lombard artist. Caravaggio used real models, posing for days on end. To avoid producing in the viewer a sensation of static nature in the scene, he immersed the figures in the dark, illuminating them with bursts of light resembling the flash of a photographer. In this way, the light created a sense of suspended action, which photographers today tend to reread his works giving rise to tableaux vivants, sometimes of a superficial formal elegance that aims to reproduce Caravaggio’s meticulous way of painting, emphasizing it in a hyper-realistic key. But it’s true that photography is hyper-realistic in itself, based on absolute fidelity to reality due to its mechanical nature. The only way to visit Caravaggio while remaining on the side of authentic art production and not of its low imitation is therefore to use his paintings as if they were standards on which to radically innovate, just like Monica Silva does. “Crucial, for Monica Silva, is the reference to the history of art, visiting museums, and returning to some masterpieces of art history. The Brazilian photographer does not aspire to sever bridges or connections: the image, for her, must open up unexplored paths inside the ravines of memory. She wants to give a cultural background to every poetic glimmer. Look above all at the sumptuous artifices of the Baroque, using primers and glazes. A photograph, for her, is not a fantasy, nor a way to shape anything. On the contrary, it is a reworking of motifs already consolidated in our heritage". The charm of these photographs is given by the great complexity of the expressive registers of different eras and sensibilities and it is an operation in which past and present merge into a common iconographic symbolism whose classical matrix comes alive with incredibly unusual lights and colours and this is possible only thanks to the technological skills of today's photography. "Lux et Filum" outlines a path for images in which symbols and compositions follow the rhythm of creativity and extravagance. The shots that emerge are very stimulating and also visionary. With these works I have tried to give a glorious and influential painter over the centuries like Caravaggio, an aesthetic that is still powerful, new, revolutionary today”, says Monica Silva

Creator:

Monica Silva (1965, Brazilian)

Creation Year:

2014

Dimensions:

Height: 35.44 in (90 cm)Width: 47.25 in (120 cm)Depth: 1.11 in (2.8 cm)

More Editions & Sizes:

30x40Price: $2,81460x80Price: $5,018

Medium:

Digital,Plexiglass,Digital Pigment

Movement & Style:

Pop Art