A few days ago this beautiful portrait written by Alessandro Marongiu went to press.
“Surreal, dreamlike, ambivalen: this is how Emanuela Cau describes her self-portraits, and there are not better words for an exact description. The words, however, are not in the least sufficient to offer an idea of the Emanuela’s works: you can only see them. Let’s say even better: you have to see them. To do this, just go to his Instagram profile, which is easily found by typing his name in the search string. The human figure doubles (or split), triples, merges with the scenery around it, with objects, with elements of nature or with parts of animals, giving life to new beings that belong to other worlds, to other levels of the spirit, of consciousness. «I often find myself thinking that I couldn’t live if not surrounded by the sea. The sea is evocative, it resounds within, awakens something ancestral, the unknown. I am also fascinated by the storms and the deep black of certain waters, as well as the shores. But it is the drift that I create with my photos. ”. The result comes at the end of a complex process. «In the first phase, images and feelings begin to dialogue, and I look for them and build elements that will fill the space in every shot that I’ll take; sometimes even a few things are enough, it matters that what is present in space touches the emotional sphere, triggers feelings.“Then, there is the most difficult moment, the shot: I have to work carefully to make sure that something that normally tends to hide, emerges … At the same time, I have to take care of every technical aspect, shots, lights, scenarios, composition, focus, and without being able to observe the subject I will photograph, because the subject is almost always me. Not because I love to be photographed, indeed I would say the opposite: the fact is that I carry on an extremely intimate discourse, I dig deep and usually I expect a lot from my subject…Then, comes the next moment, given that the shot represents an important, but not definitive, phase.”.What happens to the photos after taking them changes a lot. Generally all of them are viewed and processed on the computer to evaluate their potential, but similar photos can take very different paths. On some that I decide to print, I like to intervene in various ways, often adding threads to give the idea that the image does not end up inside the painting, that it continues outside, that it can be connected to it, fastened. Sometimes, those threads are stitching or embroidery on the wounds of the print. On other occasions, I add color or gold, or I still superimpose additional photos on top of the main one. “The body or face of Emanuela Cau, and the objects, and environments it uses, lose their original, material dimension, and give rise to an unprecedented one: “The reality is not all in what can be told, not all words are real. With the images created through my photographs, I try to express feelings that cannot find words. ”.
© Emanuela Cau
- Etsy
