Graziella Romeo is a young Calabrian artist who explores themes such as body, identity, and memory. The body is understood as a lived body, an evolving body, whose perception changes in the flow of existence and in the continuous relationship with the world; identity is created through the addition of body and memory, in a continuous process of deconstruction and reconstruction of the self; memory is the collection of memories or recollections of past events related to the complex mnemonic mechanism of the brain, through the study of false memories, using AI as a potential creative medium. These three macro-areas are seemingly divided, as they can intertwine and blend with one another.
Currently, the artist is pursuing an experimental work focused on autobiographical and collective memory, starting from photography, which is transformed and developed into hybrid visual works.
Graziella Romeo
Memory voices
90x14x10 cm
Not available
Graziella Romeo
Falso ricordo
162x12x10 cm
Private collection
From an autobiographical perspective, over time Graziella has developed a series of works that connect the past and its reprocessing with the intention of rewriting one or more personal narratives. Using the photographic image as a starting point, she has created a series of visual projects that range from painting to installation.
The project that has given rise to her current research is Falso Ricordo. Inspired by a concept expressed by James Hillman, which states that “our life is not so much determined by our childhood as by how we have learned to imagine it,” the artist conceived a sort of artist’s book centered around the theme of false memory. In it, the psychic image of a memory contrasts with the visual image captured by the camera, highlighting the distance—and sometimes the tension—between memory and representation.
Memory Voices originated as a work focused on the memories of strangers. The starting photographs were partially digitally manipulated to create cyanotype prints, playing on the positive and negative aspects of the photographic image. The cyanotype development was further processed through toning, which allowed for the creation of images with an antiqued effect, thus emphasizing the aspect of memory and the passage of time. The choice to develop the images in negative stems from the idea of communicating an incommunicable memory, as if it had not yet been developed and focused, signifying an impersonal memory.
Graziella Romeo
Italy, 1994
The investigation of memory constitutes the core of Graziella’s research today. As memory is intimately linked to identity and individual experience, her projects address the complexity of recollection, engaging in dialogue with neuroscience and the mnemonic dynamics of the human brain. The photographic images that underpin this research are indissolubly tied to memory, influencing and shaping our perception of the past.
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