Water

This series of artist’s proofs is part of the development of the "Holding hands" project which collects all photos taken during the meetings with my mother in the last years of her life. The proof was made before, on this photo of the Waters.

Touches
All those works characterised by a touch of colour added with the point of my finger or hand belong to this series.

Waters
«The association between what I see in my painting and what I see right outside my space. Every day, as soon as I get to the studio I fetch the camera that I have mounted on a piece of equipment. Then I go onto the canal side in front of my studio, I put the camera down on the corner of the little wall and I take a photo of the same place. The frame captures the place where the water rises and falls according to the tide. The water that more or less covers the brick wall activates a strong relationship with my “Sedimentations”. The stale water, which remains, which enters and exits from the lagoon rises and falls, rises and falls. It fills and spills over. It empties and reveals.»
Maria Morganti

«And today too, Morganti takes the picture she takes every morning, in the exact same position, with the same framing, the same angle, the same aperture, the same exposure. She always portrays the same rectangle of the world: a few layers of bricks that end up in the water of the canal. Above appear the reds and oranges of the bricks and the mortar between them, which turns from grey to moss green as it descends. Further down, the wall is wet and covered with dark algae, an almost black brown that glows, further down, with a dark purple. Then the wall plunges into the water, reflecting in the murky blue-green of the Rio del Gozzi.
Seen distractedly, those shots of hers may seem upside down, with that earthy chromatic weight the reds ending – who knows why – at the top of the image, while at the bottom there is a piece of sky and in the middle a layer of green lawn. But in Venice, because of the omnipresence of water, it is easier than elsewhere to feel oneself as though between two bowls closed one on top of the other to form a sphere: the bowl of bricks and water at the bottom and the dome of sky at the top. At every step, the reflection of the water turns the world up-side down, repeating the chase of the hemispheres in the small walnut shell of the city.
Elena Volpato, in "Maria Morganti" (GAM-Corraini, 2024)

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