orsina sforza

Her work stresses everyday moments, successive or individual. She singles out insignificant details, and analyzes their unique structure, their ways of reacting to light and reveal colour, she transforms a simple thing into a complex and versatile matter. The paintings are luminous and figurative, but not immediately decipherable; they persevere in their elusiveness of mysterious objects, perfect arabesques one step removed.

Things that don’t resemble anything else, in which one can catch a glimpse of the depth of the earth appearing on the surface of the canvas, like en roscas de cristal serpiente breve (quote from La toma de Larache (capture of Larache) by poet Luis de Góngora, 1561-1627.).

The different compositions are all characterized by the study of the image either fixed or in movement, but the stylistic elements are those of the cinema and photography: enlarged close-ups, angles and sizes with the aesthetic of a single frame, some use of over- and under- exposure, allow Sforza to cut her subject into shape, place them into brilliant, often crowded compositions. She puts into focus. Sees what she sees… and goes deeper not to see.

Starting with the idea of representation, casual and every day, her painting excludes the human figure, instead prefers the encounter of an envelope with a fire hydrant, the survival of a plastic tube entangled in ruins, the happy collaboration between the drapes of a piece of cloth and the bark of a branch; the upward flight of a belt from a drawer or within the folds of a sheet; the improvised siege of fine grass crossing over other plastic tubes, or next to other similar objects which appear magnified on the canvas.

In the last few years these encounters happen all the more often in the open, many on the terrace of the artist, in her house sull’aventino, where she has created an environment favouring the cooperation of plants and birds, with minimal intervention by man. Here everything is created by the intelligence of chance and its guardians, who are the only ones allowed to mingle with the nature of things, where a picture forms itself, which no longer depends on us.

Sforza approaches painting as a modern medium, purely using photography as lens to bring into focus the point of departure, to isolate her meticulous compositions before starting to paint. She possesses a rare sense for colour with which she recalls, distinguishes; she plays with the pro and contra with an innate grace which allows her to arrive at the monumental nature of great painting even in a small format, without even trying.

Mirta d'Argenzio

Orsina Sforza