“Carmengloria Morales meets Antonella Zazzera. Sermugnano and Todi” by Carmengloria Morales, 2005
I will start from the end: I consider Antonella Zazzera a very good artist.
I saw her work four years ago and I was struck by the reality of her works. They were earthy paintings realized with glues, tar and chalk, with a strong and contained gesture. “Madri Matrici, works on gauze, where I bring lines of force linked to my body through the Segnotraccia.” Antonella declared.
Subsequently, one year ago, I saw her weavings of copper threads presented at Todi in a large open air sculpture exhibition. I was again struck by the same quality: a complex work that presents itself with simplicity and immediacy, components of true art. The sculptures composed of a dense interweaving of copper wires of different thickness were placed on the ground – on that grass seat – naturally, as if they had been deposited by chance, without expository emphasis. The artificial and natural were in perfect harmony. Part of the series of Armonici, the artist calls these works the materialization of photographic Segnotraccia.
As I later discovered in her studio, Antonella Zazzera’s work is articulate and complex. I better understood her thought and the path of her research which runs between picture, sculpture, drawing and photography. Her approach is always pertinent to the specific of each material. I discovered an analytic nature and systematic procedure which explores with rigor and liberty.
Now I would like to give the word to Antonella so she can broadly define the path of her research:
The Segnotraccia: the basis of my artistic research which represents the total identification between the work and the artist. The means that allow the fusion between the individual and the work of art.
MADRI MATRICI
Works on gauze, where I bring the lines of force linked to my body through the track markers (made with glues, tar and plaster).
FRAMMENTI
Born from the Madri Matrici: the link between the generating body and the generated body (the layer of plaster that, through a ritual procedure, detaches from the Madri Matrici).
THE PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKS
The material which I photograph is Vetronite (fiberglass), made of copper and glass powder. On the metal surface, I perform scratches, incisions and grooves that then encounter small glass prisms. Through reflection and refraction, I obtain light effects that the eye does not perceive; it is only through the the sensitivity of photographic film that I am able to capture these effects. In photography, the metal body is track marked through incisions and grooves, it comes to life through the light that animates the chromatics and sinuous forms. The result is a mysterious, arcane and secret body that is only partially revealed.
ARMONICI
The sculpture series that represents the materialization of photograph Segnotraccia. This intertwining of signs is composed of copper wires (of different thicknesses), the material of which is, in part, a component of the photographed body. The signs, which form the weave of the metal body, seem, almost by magic, to materialize and escape from the photographic work… they take form, they come to life outside the sedimented twine that generates the harmonic being.