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avec l'aimable permission de la Galerie Lilian Rodriguez
« Pietà » 2010
10 x 38 pouces encadré / inches framed
épreuve chromogénique / c-print ~ 1 de 10
1200 $
« Pieta » 2010 10 x 38 pouces / inches épreuve chromogénique / c-print ~ 1 de 10 1200 $ Recently, the fragility of life in the context of narrative based imagery has been my focus of my artistic practice. Over the past several years, I have produced work, which centers on familial themes, the role of the women within this institution, intimacy, autobiography and the complex relationship between mother and child. Focusing on issues relating to identity, displacement, abandonment and maternal mortality.
History and Context: In 1951, when my mother was 5 years old she was sent from her native province of Sardinia in Italy to live with her sick aunt in the southern province of Calabria. She left, never to return to live in her childhood home with her immediate family. She suffered immensely from familial abandonment. The complex relationship she had with her mother in which the duality of love and hate were manifested, resulted in a life long ambivalence to express herself and keep silent. This emotionally dramatic yet personal experience has inspired the work entitled ‘Pietà’.
Pietà, comprises of large-scale colour photographs and a video portrait presented as a projection. It draws inspiration from Michelangelo Buonarotti’s sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the body of Jesus after the crucifixion. The Pietà is a passion portrait that expresses the inner landscape between mother and child. In my adaptation, the roles are reversed, my mother is the one portrayed in a state of vulnerability, alluding to a maelstrom of the intense emotional imbalance she experienced as a child. In many ways this body of work is about how I translate this family drama through symbolic gesture via portraiture, landscape and still life.
Marisa Portolese’s work often explores the relationship between the fixed photographic portrait and narrative desire. Her explorations in contemporary portraiture concentrate on elucidating facets of human experiences in relation to psychological and physical environments, relating to larger themes concerning identity and spectatorship.