Giorgia Valli
Giorgia Valli is a photographer and digital artist who has exhibited in Italy and the United States, particularly in California. Recent exhibitions include duel shows at Equinom Gallery in San Francisco, Center for Creative Photography in Arizona, and Kopekin Gallery in Los Angeles. Giorgia has received grants from the One Exposure Awards as well as Lucca Art Fair in Italy and her notable publications include features with the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Harper’s Bazaar.
The portfolio focuses on abstract digitized works based on photographs of rocks as well as a series titled Aves Mei based on Giorgia’s photography at the Bronx Zoo. Giorgia also has an interesting series of photographs reflecting the volcanic and lake textural landscapes she captured while in New Zealand. The photos at the Bronx Zoo depict exotic birds within naturalistic synthetic environments meant to recreate their habitats. Because of Giorgia’s selective cropping, these habitations appear real as if she took documentive photography out in the deep jungles of the Amazon.
Full of deep atmosphere and sfumato, these works instill a sense of heightened realism with their capturing of immense detail, yet contain high contrast similar to a Baroque painting. With vegetation and stone unfolded and reaching beyond the composition, the dark angles of the photographs reveal a character to the birds and objects contained within, one of unification and intense focus. As we study the poetic dynamism within the art, we will notice a study of birds resting on perches facing away from the viewer as if unaware of our presence. We are guests in the fowl’s environment as she waits for a screeching call from her peers. The isolation becomes palpable and the passage of time indicated by the absolute stillness of Giorgia’s subjects. Meanwhile, the digital works, in contrast, provide ambiguity and pixelization as if traveling through an area with immense electrical interference such as a lightning storm. Their immense synthetic tones move through the composition similar to a chemical reaction from experimenting with an analogue photograph in the lab.
AA AEIA IUE. Hyacinth Macaw (pictured above) depicts a parrot covered in shadow perched on petrified wood. Although the scene remains synthetic due to the painted background and unnatural stance of the dead tree, Giorgia’s atmospheric photography and selective cropping creates a sense of a painterly firmament reminiscent of the old masters. With her elegant elongated tail feathers and royal beak, the bird sits in idle darkness as if waiting in endless time. She appears frozen and almost imagined, as if an expressionistic motif from a painter’s palette.
Giorgia Valli creates bold photography which encapsulates the essence of her subjects through atmospheric tension with a sense of intense compositional focus representing the passage of time. As the viewer, we stumble upon her ambiguous works and attempt to unravel the mystery behind her subject matter, whether alive or inanimate. With fierce focus and astonishing levels of technical realism, Giorgia captures the imbued spirit of her subjects as if we were joining her upon her travels to the Bronx Zoo or the remote volcanic shores of Aotearoa in New Zealand.
