I was honored to have my work recently published in a new, cutting edge publication called The Stone. Designed by the creative team at Pil Associati, a communications agency based in Italy, The Stone explores the evolution and transformation between the intersections of art, communication, society, and technology.
I just received a copy of the inaugural issue, and it is stunning. The design is inventive and dynamic, and I was really impressed by the overall quality.
As for the content, the work they’ve chosen to represent is evocative and exciting. It seems to exhibit an awareness of global culture and visual awareness. I was particularly impressed with their interview questions- they were intriguing, insightful, and made me really think about my responses:
TS: Your shots transport us to a dimension in between the unconscious and the lucid dream. What do they want to show us? What other realities emerge?
CI: Perhaps they depict that very transition from unconscious to awareness, from dream to awake, or from one dimension to another and anywhere in between. The realities that emerge may express experiences of the mind or of the psyche, revealing different levels of awareness and psychological states of being.
TS: Mutation is the only constant reality. How has your art changed shape over time?
CI: Over the years, I have found that whatever my approach to looking at the human form, it is all one body of work, and that each informs one another. I envision this as a spiral, continually going from water to mirrors to hot tub and back to water, and so on, with each cycle taking anywhere from 10-15 years to complete. Not only do these cycles include the situation, but patterns of visual deconstruction and reconstruction, as well as mythological and psychological issues. In revisiting the same place on the spiral years later, I see differently, elevated by previous approaches. I return to the same situation with new eyes and heightened awareness to nuances and subtleties that I could not have seen before. In addition, it’s not just my eyes that have evolved – I have changed as well. I’m a different person, having lived my life, experienced love, loss, death, and all the myriad experiences that impact a person’s perspective.
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Thanks again to Valentina Ottone, Federica Capparuccia, Chiara Castronovo and all the folks at Pil Associati collaborating on The Stone Mag for inviting me to contribute, and looking forward to seeing more!
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To check out the interview in its entirety, click below!!
TS: Your shots transport us to a dimension in between the unconscious and the lucid dream. What do they want to show us? What other realities emerge?
CI: Perhaps they depict that very transition from unconscious to awareness, from dream to awake, or from one dimension to another and anywhere in between. The realities that emerge may express experiences of the mind or of the psyche, revealing different levels of awareness and psychological states of being. TS: In your photographs the water is a recurring element, the bearer of symbols and deep meaning. What lead you to merge with it in order to develop your art?
CI: Fear. Since I was quite young I have had a fear of water, specifically of drowning, although my phobia was not a conscious factor in deciding to work with it. I was simply attracted to the visual properties of water; the distortions, reflections, and magical way light can interact with it. It wasn’t until I wanted to photograph below the surface that I began to realize what a large role my unconscious had played in working with water, and led me to confronting my fears. While my images are about so much more than my apprehension, fear can be a profound source of energy and motivation. TS: Every visual expression arises from alchemy of elements of different nature. What are the ones that contaminate your art and how do they combine?
CI: I do not plan or think of images, but rather work intuitively. I have always been fascinated by the workings of the mind and therefore many of the elements found in my work reference different aspects of psychology as well as mythology (which has been called the original psychology). I am often surprised by the frequency that religious symbology also occurs in my work because of my disdain for organized religion. An intuitive process invites participation from the unconscious, and I’m often surprised at these elements emerging in my work. I find images coming from this process to have a depth and complexity missing from conceptually produced images. TS: Mutation is the only constant reality. How has your art changed shape over time?
CI: Over the years, I have found that whatever my approach to looking at the human form, it is all one body of work, and that each informs one another. I envision this as a spiral, continually going from water to mirrors to hot tub and back to water, and so on, with each cycle taking anywhere from 10-15 years to complete. Not only do these cycles include the situation, but patterns of visual deconstruction and reconstruction, as well as mythological and psychological issues. In revisiting the same place on the spiral years later, I see differently, elevated by previous approaches. I return to the same situation with new eyes and heightened awareness to nuances and subtleties that I could not have seen before. In addition, it’s not just my eyes that have evolved – I have changed as well. I’m a different person, having lived my life, experienced love, loss, death, and all the myriad experiences that impact a person’s perspective.
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