What type of printing do you prefer?
I prefer sublimation printing on fabric.
Did the idea come first or the fascination with the material?
It depends on the project, but generally I start with the idea and then study the most appropriate materials.
Do you have any Masters you look up to and feel close to?
The artists I favor usually have a different style than mine; I like to look elsewhere when I’m inspired. I love artists like Roger Ballen, Evelyn Bencicova, Lola Dupre, Sophie Calle, and others—very different from each other, but all incredibly inspiring.
In his photographs, with their immense technical expressiveness, we find bodies floating, writhing in pairs, like Ophelias floating on the surface of the water, or figures completely immersed in murky amniotic fluid. This fluid is perhaps a protection, perhaps a barrier, a threshold, between two opposites: an above and a below, an inside and an outside, the present and the eternal.
“Dream bodies” therefore, Borges-ian, which are then replaced by the “symbolic bodies” of “Apokalipsis” (2020).
In this blood-red series, the unpredictable movement of the water is erased by homogeneous backgrounds, flat, Mannerist backgrounds that take us on a journey from Pontormo’s “The Deposition” to Russian Orthodox icons, passing through the desperation of Masaccio’s “Expulsion from Paradise” and the fetishistic opulence of the large human limbs portrayed by Jenny Saville.
I’m intrigued by his relationship with the Body, dream-symbol-metaphor and flesh.
Could you tell us something about it?
Exactly, I work on border lines, I am interested in everything that is hidden, concealed, at times almost violent in its depth, in stark contrast with the outside.
In Apokalipsis the water disappears but not from a metaphorical point of view… the bodies launch themselves, they bend seeking air, resolution, primitive awakening.
Symbolism is frequent: in water the frame is central and therefore divine; in the scarlet portraits the subjects become modern saints, stripped of an ancient iconography and protagonists of modern individualism.
Future projects?
This year I’m working on an ancient technique called cyanotype. I’m returning to water, my great love, and I have a project in the works consisting of large portraits, full of spiritual iconography, which is the underlying theme of my work.
Biography
Ramona Zordini
Photographer-Artist
Ramona Zordini
Ramona Zordini is a photographer/visual artist living in Brescia. Her photography is delicate and dreamlike, at times brazen and compelling. Her work has been exhibited in spaces such as the Museo S. Giulia in Brescia, the Museo agli Eremitani in Padua, the MACS Museum in Catania, and many others. Her work has been published in magazines such as Hi Fructose Magazine, Uno Kudo, ZOOM Magazine, and others, and she has also lent her work to book covers and film posters.
Her artistic research stems from the medium of photography, immediately imposing the need to eliminate the spatial and mental limitations of square, two-dimensional photographic works. She works primarily on the concept of change, of psycho-physical transformation, drawn more to the evolution marked and modified by time than to the completed process. Often an actor in her own work, she uses art to explore and uncover her own closed boxes.
In recent years, seeking to transcend spatial boundaries, she has combined body photography with sewing, engraving, drawing, and other techniques.
I long for the impermeability of things to touch every sensation without it occasionally filtering my being and stunning me, leaving me imploded to fill a box of decomposed recollections reinvented in my image and likeness. The term is ambiguous, the place, the gesture, the thought, your eyes lost inside a him without entrance, it is an eternal moment of transition, nothing is like yesterday, the filter needs cleaning.
ONLY EXHIBITIONS
2022 Changing Time, La Grande Bellezza, Lojelo Gallery, Volterra, curated by Karen Lojelo
2019 Film Poster “VENEZIA” by Rodrigo Guerrero, presented at the Edinburgh International Film Festival
2019 Obscura, MACOF Museum, Brescia, curated by Renato Corsini
2017 Photography for ANARTCTICA short film by Iesh Thapar candidate at Champ Elisee Film Festival
2016 TV Documentary “L’Art Erotique” on ICI ARTV Canada by Eureka Production
2014 Aquatic Transition, 77 Art Gallery, Milan, curated by Giovanni Manzoni Piazzalunga
2014 “Changing Time”, National Museum of Photography, Brescia Italy, Curated by Luisa Bondoni
2013 Presentation of “Stitched Photography,” National Museum of Photography, Brescia, curated by Luisa Bondoni
2011 Obscura, Wave Photogallery, Brescia
2011 Obscura, Albanese Gallery, Matera
2011 Obscura, Winner of the BAF Prize, Sala Manzoni, Bergamo
2010 I Look.. Gallerati Gallery, Rome
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 Women Tonalities, Macof, Brescia, curated by Renato Corsini, Laura Pescatori, Jean Luc Stote
2021 Brescia Photo Festival 2021 “Heritage” Beautiful! 20 photographers overwhelmed by an unusual splendor
Edited by Mario Trevisan. Photographs by: Claudio Amadei, Gabriele Basilico, Mariella Bettineschi, Fabio Bix, Dorothy Bhawl, Silvia Camporesi, Bruno Cattani, Giovanni Chiaramonte, Renato Corsini, Franco Fontana, Maurizio Galimberti, Giovanni Gastel, Luca Gilli, Carlo Mari, Massimo Minini, Gianni Pezzani, Carlo Orsi, Paolo Ventura, Joe Oppedisano, Ramona Zordini.
2021 Alchemist, Honorable Guest, Nili Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey
2019 Re-Generazione Scomodo, 7 November, Macro Asilo, Macro Museum, Rome
2019 Artkeys prize exhibition (1 photography prize) Angevin Aragonese Castle, Agropoli
2019 Photo Open Up, “The self, the other and the elsewhere”, Museo degli Eremitani, Padua, Curated by Mario Trevisan and Carlo Sala
2019 “Battlefields”, Galleria Guidi & Schoen, Genoa, Curated by Chico Schoen
2019 “Self-portrait of the Female”, S.Giulia Museum, Brescia Photo Festival, curated by Mario Trevisan and Donata Pizzi
2019 Poster of the Brescia Photo Festival, Curated by Renato Corsini and Fondazione Brescia Musei
2019 Other Identity, Galleria Guidi & Schoen, Genoa, curated by Francesco Arena
2018 Annual Exhibition of Acquisitions, Italian Photographic Self-Portrait Archive Senigallia, curated by Giorgio Bonomi and the MUSINF Museum
2018 MACS Collection, MACS Museum Catania, curated by Giuseppina Napoli
2018 Visioni di Donna, with Katerina Belkina, Jolanda Spagno, Vanessa Longo, Cesar Meneghetti, Seung-Hwan Oh, Crearte Studio, Oderzo
2018 Wondertime Catania, GAM Ex CONvento S.Chiara, Aequilibrium, curated by Daniela Arionte
2017 When Water, MAAD Museum, Adria, Curated by Tobia Donà
2016 TV Documentary “L’Art Erotique” on ICI ARTV Canada by Eureka Production
2016 Piece Of, Teatro Quirinetta, Rome
2016 Mia Art Fair, Milan, Crearte Studio
2016 Macs Collection, MACS Museum of Contemporary Art Sicily, Curated by Giuseppina Napoli
2016 Ophelia The Exhibition, Cell63 Art Gallery, Berlin, Curated by Luisa Catucci
2016 Art Quake, Market exhibition for the population affected by the earthquake, Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona
2015 AAF Hong Kong, Lopez Gray Gallery, Curated by Pippa Graber
2015 Museo di Chiari, Italy, Curated by Mara Lupatini
2015 Battersea Affordable Art Fair, Lopez Gray Gallery
2015 New York AAF, Art Dog London
2015 The Blackout Festival, Basel, Curated by Shazeb Shaikh
2015 AAF Amsterdam, Al Fifteen Gallery
2014 “The languages of the body” curated by Giovanni Manzoni Piazzalunga, 77 Art Gallery, Milan
2014 Cromatic Photo Festival, curated by Massimo Vecchi,Catania
2014 “Acqua Virtuosa”, Civic Aquarium of Milan, Photofestival Milan, curated by Giovanni Pelloso
2014 “Made in Brescia”, Wave Photo Gallery, Brescia, curated by Renato Corsini
2014 “Reloaded Again”, Arte Passante Space, Milan, curated by Giovanni Manzoni Piazzalunga
2014 “Alchemists”, Courts Garden Gallery, Bradford on Avon, England
2014 “Impermeables”, Espacio Serendipia, Madrid, Curated by Abel Azcona
2013 AAF Selected Artist for Eberhard, Milan
2013 Save the beauty, Rossocontemporaneo Gallery, Taranto
2013 Changing Time, Aliens Fracture, Palazzo Pirola, Gorgonzola
2013 Brother Sun, Sister Water, Save the Beauty, Church of Santa Maria dei Maschi, Bari, curated by Grace Zanotto
2013 Private Portraits, with Franco Fontana, Enzo dal verme, Gianni Berengo Gardin, Joe Oppedisano, Paul Salembier, Melina Mulas etc., Wave photograllery, Brescia, curated by Renato Corsini
2012 TouchStories, Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona
2012 TouchStories, WEYA World Event Young Artists, Nottingham
2012 Touchstories, Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan
2012 Ambiguity, Family Margins Gallery
2011 TouchStories, Bjcem, Thessaloniki, Curated By Studio Azzurro
2010 Innsbruck Art Fair, Innsbruck
2009 Click up, winner of Telethon Prize, Rome
2007 Altavia, winner of the Altavia prize, Ventimiglia
COMPETITIONS
ND Award 2020, Honorable Mention in Fine Art: Nudes Category
1st Artkeys Award 2019
Tina Prize 2014 Finalist
Award now 2013 finalist
1st BAF Award 2011
1st place Telethon Award 2009
Finalist Arteingenua Prize 2009
Finalist Tau Visual Prize 2009