21 May – 2 July 2022
The Perth Centre for Photography is pleased to present State of Change, by Emilio Cresciani opening 6 pm, Friday, 20 May 2022. RSVP here.
The ice caps are melting. New landscapes are created through rising sea levels. And as the ice sheets shrink, more light is absorbed onto the earth’s surface, further accelerating global warming. A vicious circle.
Drawing together works using both darkroom and digital techniques “State of Change” captures the fascinating transformation of ice into water. In these works, light travels through blocks of ice, large and small, industrial and domestic. As it slowly melts, its shape and form are changed making parallels with the effects of climate change. The resulting images document the frozen fragments refracting and reflecting light, producing patterns suggestive of changing landscapes. Ice floats in a sea of negative space. Like a window into other worlds, drips and spots from the melting ice reference how humans have marked the earth, the profound impacts of human-induced climate change on our landscape.
Photograms capture what happens on photographic paper as ice melts. Duraclears document the transformation of a large 200 kg block of ice, with light piercing through it, chipped away and slowly melting. The work continues his interest in altered landscapes, in an abstract way, exploring negative space, and particularly transition.
As we reflect on our world, our perceptions can be refracted, we ‘put on ice’ the actions we need to take.
“Cresciani’s images .. visually evoke the process of ice melting in new ways: as wafer-thin moments in time; in extreme close up; as areas of diffused and refracted light. Abstractly beautiful .. the invitation to reflect is there – proffered not through spectacle, but by way of attachment to the mysterious, irreplaceable world they spring from”. Anne Ferran
The works were made during Cresciani’s 2020 Dark Matter Residency at Photo Access.
Emilio Cresciani is an artist who lives and works on Gadigal land (Sydney, Australia). He graduated from Sydney College of the Arts in 2012 in photo media. His artwork explores redundancy and urban change. His interest is in objects, structures, buildings and landscapes in transition, and in particular the increasing number of ‘non-places’ that fill our environment. Waste centres, derelict service stations, road works, car parks and abandoned factories. Beauty is found in these places of repulsion, neglect or obsolescence.
He has been a finalist in the Earth Photo Award London, KL PhotoAward, Bowness Photography Prize, Northern Beaches Environment Award, Du Rietz Award, Mandorla Art Prize, International Monochrome Awards, National Youth Self Portrait Prize, and Semi-Finalist Head On Portrait Prize. In 2020 he received a Dark Matter Residency, PhotoAccess, Canberra.
