LAURA DI FAZIO

Laura Di Fazio (1957, Milan, Italy) lives and works in Milan. Her artistic research has been developing and growing since 1990 between graphic art and engraving to more experimental techniques, such as pattern painting, and cyanotyping. Her works arise from the interaction between different techniques through the layering of signs and colour that create textures and patterns.

In the series Costellazioni Familiari, drawing on her collection of old albumen photos, the "carte de visite", she wanted to rescue faces of people who lived long ago from oblivion. The blue evokes the characteristic pigment of the cyanotype process, an ancient technique that originated at the dawn of photography. As in engraving, cyanotyping is also a pleasure to print: as in alchemy, special iron salts are treated and mixed, work is carried out on precious cotton paper, brushing is done, and processing times must be respected. And just like in painting, cyanotypes have the same brush strokes and light relationships as monochrome. For this reason, even if there is one print run, no two cyanotypes are ever identical. Thanks to this very special blue, the images seem to come from a bygone era... the objects do not change hundreds of years later, just as the gestures we use in using them do not change much.

Nelle camere blu (2019), she wanted to give new life to household objects by posing them, giving them a new identity, and in some compositions classic still lives from the history of art emerge from memory.