ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Izumi Chiaraluce

I lived in Rome many years and this makes me ponder about the relationship between past and present time. My challenge is to use so called "traditional" media like drawing and painting, "academic genre" like portrait, etymology, Latin idioms and show their actuality.

My work is about a reflection on travelling, the paradox of identity, it is one as it has many facets, often in between to "be and not to be", the awareness of a memory and amnesia, "horror and amor vacui" (love and hate of the void). The love of the void is linked to a zen philosophy, "horror vacui" is due to the research of a depth and an identity by absorbing "everything»: exhibition, books, cinema, music in order to fill a lack, make a synthesis and start again.

You can see this desire of knowledge through a series of work named ironically "Opera Omnia", "O-O", the all becomes nothing because there is a saturation of information, the whole becomes almost unreadable.

The intention is to create an "organic" texture with elements taken from diverse backgrounds, books of sciences, art, history, encyclopaedia, confront famous historical images with other images taken from the "subculture" of manga-comics, newspapers all kind of magazines, and with my own memory: the pictures I've been taking.

As well I'm trying to give an order, a structure to this texture using vivid colours inspired by "MTV" (music television) and with a grid, it's a consideration on the internet or the web, tool of information where you can find what you're looking for, but also get lost. The grid is also a tool of measurement used for the maps, travelling shows as well this contradiction, you learn and enrich yourself with new experiences but at the same time, something is left behind, part of your memory is fading away. To this idea of travelling and "cancellation" I'm developing a series of works titled "itineraria picta" (painted itinerary), retracing the maps of the places where I've been through modern and ancient cartography, (often in between artistic interpretation and scientific rigourness).

By the way, being always "on the road" brings the desire to get to the essential, for me it is still to be able to look somebody in the eyes.
"Incipio Oculis" (I'm beginning with the eyes) is the name of the work I would like to introduce, it is due to an interest I always had for eyes and faces.

Incipio oculis (I.O.) is a work in progress started in 97, it is a growing number of portraits divided in series or "cycle" each representing twelve different persons.
The idea of cycle of 12 was important to give an idea of time, a hint about continuity and renewal, similarity and diversity, it is a metaphor about all the different faces of the self, (IO).
At first glance it may not be clear, these are mainly portraits of women, whom I've met during my travels, friends or casual encounters on occasion with just the time for a snapshot.

I'm interested in portraying "diversity", persons with particular or strong features, "mixed" with different ethnic backgrounds, young or with the charm of the wrinkles.

For all the portraits a thin line draws the contour of the face it recalls a mask (actually "Phersu": mask is the etymology of person) it would like to be a synthesis between realism and abstraction, western tradition of portraiture and Japanese tradition of "Noh mask".

They are essential, without hair and any other detail revealing a social status, this makes them alike. But every person portrayed has a different expression, is looking to the viewer who is observed at the same time.

There is a "face to face" and the portrait becomes a mirror, an invitation to observe the "other".

It is incredible that looking for something you can find yourself in the face of a stranger!
This is what happens during my travels, making portraits is to give a sense, a face to the unknown and randomness of an encounter, it's to fix the memory of a person, of a journey, to pay attention and catch the extraordinary of everyday.

Lately I focused my research on a minority of persons, who get to live in "between" for diverse reasons, it was really interesting to have a dialogue and portray their faces, it is a research embracing other fields as well, like anthropology, sociology and psychology there is how it is developing:

While I was in New-York, I've met many Afro-American women, bright, with a strong personality and special features, nevertheless they have to cope with a subtle discrimination, it's senseless but it is a reality

Also in New York I've remarked so many persons who are "half cast" with very diverse ethnic and cultural background. It is curious to see how they integrate with the social and urban environment and how they made a synthesis with their original backgrounds.

I have to say that I had the same problem of "identity". I don't look Italian and I'm not considered Japanese either but I can speak both languages, and while studying to deepen some aspects of both cultures, I've asked myself how other Nippo-Italian would look like and how they would do their own synthesis, so I've started a cycle of interviews and portraits of Italian-Japanese person, in order to show the faces and facets of a same condition.

Also very old persons are living in "between" important habits and historical changes, memory and amnesia, as strong for their longevity as fragile in their body, often emarginated for their age, although they are a treasure of knowledge and experiences, I have started a series of portraits of elderly persons active and curious enough to have a dialogue.

I'm aware that there are so many conditions where the concept of identity is in "between" what I've shown are just some threads of a wider texture with other thematic that I'm working on.

RESUME

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