Elisa Sighicelli

Studio G7, Bologna
Through July 15

The images created by Elisa Sighicelli, an artist just a little over 30, are steeped in a mysterious atmosphere. Everything, starting with the subjects she chooses (which, quite deliberately, are familiar everyday objects and scenes, especially windows, doors, and interiors), evokes a deep and sublime feeling of waiting for something, almost creating a feeling of astonishment at the very existence of the things that gradually materialize before our eyes, thanks to the artist’s careful use of light.

The artist has developed a technique in which she partially screens the images and then inserts them one by one into the lightbox; her work is littered with references that range from photography (Ghirri) to painting (Caravaggio and his school, Magritte) to film (Bergman, Jarman) to noir novels (Poe, Chandler).

It soon becomes clear that hiding behind these images, which might seem banal, is a careful orchestration, an autonomous visual idea which, fueled by a familiarity with various languages of expression and an acute sensitivity, manages to produce works that hearken back to tradition and yet are also extremely relevant for today. Viewing the four lightboxes in the series Varigotti (1998), displayed in her solo exhibition in Bologna, one gets the feeling of tiptoeing into an anonymous apartment, dimly illuminated by a window in the back of the room. A kitchen table, some chairs, a door, slightly ajar, and the yellowed wallpaper bring to mind the set of some scene in a movie, synthesized into only a few shots.

Kennington Road (1996), by contrast, is a nighttime photograph in which a house is seen from the outside, with a light in the window. There are numerous allusions here: to Magritte, Hopper, and Brian De Palma, among others, but it is difficult to identify them all, since the artist draws from the whole huge collective reservoir of images that holds together Western culture.

The last two photographs in the exhibit, Gello: Moonlight (1999) and Isasco II (1998), show, respectively, moonlight and the top of a hill shrouded in fog. Both are emblematic works, expressing the need for spirituality that human beings cannot do without.




Stefano Gualdi
Translation by Jacqueline Smith