Empty Space

© Nicoletta Cerasomma - Image from the Empty Space photography project © Nicoletta Cerasomma - Image from the Empty Space photography project © Nicoletta Cerasomma - Image from the Empty Space photography project View all images ↓
View all images ↓

“Her name burns and pierces, shrouded in blood-red. She is a shadowy figure dissolving into a slumbering, desolate landscape. This is the story of a woman who only exists in front of an observer. When nobody is looking she begins to disappear.“

“Her name burns and pierces, shrouded in blood-red. She is a shadowy figure dissolving into a slumbering, desolate landscape. Slowly, her illuminated form, vanishes. Her effigy fades out. She dissipates, her image breaks up into tiny flecks of light, embracing the shining magic of the dark night. Her absence is transmuted into a slender elegant vision which shimmers and glows. The enchantment of the night has absorbed the silences of her vanished presence, only a glimmer remains witnessing this hallucinatory vision.

This is the story of a woman who only exists in front of an observer. When nobody is looking she begins to disappear.“

 

Every photograph is something of a mystery - born of a dream or a nightmare, a ride to unreal places or otherworldliness - as if they arose from the depths of our unconscious where people struggle in darkness for their own identity.

The images create fragments of memory, dream sequences distorted, combining real memories and suggestions made by others. Strange houses, haunted presences, monsters, animal heads, chimeras, emotions. Fragments of a dream where we wander, and the familiar and well known become unrelated, foreign and threatening. As in hallucinations, coherence and proportion are fleeting.

The juxtaposition between the present moment and a surreal scenario disrupt reality from within. The series rejects the rational, unyielding, detachment of the gaze.

 

Addicted to the ephemeral, Nicoletta Cerasomma prefers intimate concepts with refined visual identity. She invites the viewer to a meditation on the loneliness of being human and the amazing brilliance of being found. The different aspects of existence, including the dark and the mysterious, are closely melded. Darkness is vital in her world and part of her essence, in which everything is turned around by the dualism of light and dark that dominates our lives.  

Aesthetic embellishment and extravagance permeate the series. This is a way to give continuity to the mythology of surreal worlds and characters, to evoke stories that take you out of the mundane and plunge you into a world full of wonders.

 

The palette is dark with blacks, greys, earthtones, as well as poppy red and gold. Colours that recall ash, blood and harsh light. Bright contours contrast with these shades and are used to arouse the viewer’s imagination. The gold leaf and paint represent the impermanence of the vulnerability of trauma, transforming into hope. The colour red is used to signify life, blood and violence, while black emphasises the onirical, alienation, melancholy and nostalgia for what is forever lost. The absence of colour, the unreality. Our scars are derived of experiences profoundly marked by incertitude and chaos. Gold honours our wounds. They make us who we are today. Erasing them would hide who we really are to ourselves and others. This multi-layered technique faces the trauma experienced personally by the photographer and the expectation of a better future.

The photographer uses the images as a way of reshaping her personal history and to further develop her sense of consciousness. She transforms the reality and creates something personal through metaphor and imagery that suggest the failure to control the forces that seem to dictate our lives, particularly those of women. The aim is to highlight and then reduce gender bias in social relationships and expectations, despite our impotence in the face of that dominant power. But we are not alone. The deeper we go into the profundity of the darkness, the more light we can see. It means that there is beauty in the bright moments and also in the darker ones. In this way, through her art she fights against her past and purges her inner demons.

In this series every diptych expresses its own concept. Each diptych tells a story that unfolds, reinforced by the duplicity, between the portrayed character and different worlds, different but intrinsically connected. Every image is designed to be printed separately but intrinsically linked to the complementary image.

 

The viewer is invited to find his magic place in suggestive landscapes, shadowy dwellings or hideaways. Here everything seems to be fused with our own backgrounds and experience and inner journey. Unable to resist, we find ourselves part of this illusion.

© Nicoletta Cerasomma - Image from the Empty Space photography project
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“I do not understand where I end and the whole begins. Insane figures on the wall, distorted and grotesque alterations of the real. Emptiness within me. I wish I had never seen the moon.” A strong continuous loss of cultural values and traditions threaten to dissolve the myths of our lands.

© Nicoletta Cerasomma - Image from the Empty Space photography project
i

Through metaphor and imagery the artist suggests the failure to control the forces that seem to dictate our lives, particularly those of women. Discrimination and violence have left a mark upon her, shrouding the construction of an authentic identity. But we are not alone. The aim of this diptych is to promote hope through the reparation of wounds caused by trauma.

© Nicoletta Cerasomma - Image from the Empty Space photography project
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Destabilising, ambiguous characters suspended between good and evil inhabit the engulfing darkness of the night. Symbol of the antihero, the Babao, is the darkness that lies within us and the personification of our most intimate fears. She is part of Italian oral narrative tradition. The older generation is an inexhaustible source of stories and their knowledge should not be underestimated.

© Nicoletta Cerasomma - Image from the Empty Space photography project
i

The images have the strength to transform savage landscapes into places where you can find your identity, forging a primitive contact with nature. Your mind can make the journey, but never forget that what is essential is hidden in plain sight.

© Nicoletta Cerasomma - Image from the Empty Space photography project
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The mood of the scene is exquisitely evoked. Darkness is vital. Light is redemption. The night forest is a place where no human voice can be heard but it is also a place where we can find our inner voice, the strength to show ourselves for what we are. Everything is reversed by the dualism of light and darkness that dominates our lives.

© Nicoletta Cerasomma - Image from the Empty Space photography project
i

Turn off your mind, close your eyes and find your magic place. Seek the movement of the stars within you. Let your mind slip away. That marvellous intoxicated feeling will take over.

© Nicoletta Cerasomma - Image from the Empty Space photography project
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An eerie place, the gloom, Mythical and legendary creatures, goddesses, half-goddesses and other beings with whimsical shapes. Destabilizing figures. The magnetism of their diversity and idiosyncrasy makes us feel uneasy, as if emanating from a dream or a nightmare. - as if they arose from the depths of our unconscious where people struggle in darkness for their own identity.

© Nicoletta Cerasomma - Image from the Empty Space photography project
i

A distant doorway. The tangible red has been left on the door and something terrifying lies beyond. The images create fragments of memory, dream sequences distorted, combining real memories and suggestions made by others. Fragments of a dream where we wander through houses where we don’t belong, and the familiar and well known become unrelated, foreign and threatening.

© Nicoletta Cerasomma - Image from the Empty Space photography project
i

Something is looming in the sky. Nature is full of countless phenomena that have been part of human experience. When our roots are grounded in it, our existence is entrenched in a sense of belonging, freeing our deep emotions and our true identity. a flock of origami red birds perform in provocative and narcissistic manner, as depicted in the ancient world.

© Nicoletta Cerasomma - Image from the Empty Space photography project
i

“Fragments of a dream in which I wander, in the night beyond the dusk. I cannot know in which dimension I stand but wherever my life has brought me to, this is where I am. I can hardly recall how I arrived here. Unable to resist, I find myself part of this illusion.”