Limited Edition of 5
40 x 54.2 in
101.6 x 137.7 cm
US $ 4,600
A weathered plank of wood combined with organic matter yields in this work a face of particular fragility: hollowed voids that suggest mournful eyes, a surface worn to silver-gray and ochre by sun and rain, the splintered grain running through the composition like the mark of something endured. The transformation is gentle rather than monumental; the presence that emerges seems exhausted rather than authoritative, as though the material had been bearing a weight it was only now releasing.
A weathered plank of wood combined with organic matter yields in this work a face of particular fragility: hollowed voids that suggest mournful eyes, a surface worn to silver-gray and ochre by sun and rain, the splintered grain running through the composition like the mark of something endured. The transformation is gentle rather than monumental; the presence that emerges seems exhausted rather than authoritative, as though the material had been bearing a weight it was only now releasing.
Ragazzini photographs the combined surface at the distance and angle at which the interaction between the wood grain and the organic material yields maximum figural suggestion. The decay of the plank provides the raw material; the organic element introduces tonal contrast. The mirroring establishes the bilateral structure, and the subsequent elaboration of the image draws out the fragility and pathos that a straight photograph would have only suggested. The resulting presence speaks from the condition of the material rather than against it: fragility is not a limitation here but the work's register.
That logic, of finding in the overlooked and the perishable a charge that conventional materials cannot provide, connects this work to the Arte Povera tradition, which established the discarded and the deteriorating as primary artistic substance precisely because of their resistance to idealization. The weathered plank and its organic accretion operate within that understanding: the pathos that emerges from this material could only emerge from this material.
For a closer look at the making, and the thinking behind the Creature series: What the Eye Finds
