Limited Edition of 5
40 x 54.8 in
101.6 x 139.2 cm
US $ 4,600
The surface of wood or agave set against a rusted wall yields in this composition a face of majestic character: a powerful brow, alert eyes, something that reads unmistakably as a lion's physiognomy assembled from cracks, folds, and the tonal gradations of organic decay. Warm browns, soft grays, and deep rust tones carry the image; the organic material in the foreground and the oxidized wall behind it produce a chromatic layering that gives the composition unusual depth.
The surface of wood or agave set against a rusted wall yields in this composition a face of majestic character: a powerful brow, alert eyes, something that reads unmistakably as a lion's physiognomy assembled from cracks, folds, and the tonal gradations of organic decay. Warm browns, soft grays, and deep rust tones carry the image; the organic material in the foreground and the oxidized wall behind it produce a chromatic layering that gives the composition unusual depth.
Ragazzini photographs the conjunction of organic material and rusted wall at the distance and angle at which their combined surface yields maximum figural suggestion. The mirroring draws out the bilateral structure, and then the image is worked: the warm browns and deep rust tones are brought to a chromatic layering the raw photograph contains only in potential. The lion-like face declares itself from that elaborated conjunction. Their accidental conjunction makes available a face that neither material alone could have produced.
The productive tension between the perishable and the durable, the living and the corroding, held together in a single image: this is the territory Arte Povera understood as carrying a charge that neither element could generate in isolation. Ragazzini's work in this material family demonstrates the same principle without the Arte Povera framework's theoretical scaffolding. The wood or agave and the rusted wall are found in combination. Their conjunction is the work. The grandeur of the resulting figure is entirely in proportion to the humility of its origin.
For a closer look at the making, and the thinking behind the Creature series: What the Eye Finds
