About
Olyvia Oriental is proud to present a solo show by the international multi-media artist Marco Bolognesi, which runs from June 25th until July 31st. The show will feature works from photographic and film projects not yet exhibited in the UK, and in doing so will contribute to the gallery's brief to incorporate emerging art from new areas and genres such as multi media and installation art, and to showcase cutting edge, innovative artwork that contributes to the ongoing discourse of visual culture.
Born in Bologna (Italy) in 1974, Marco Bolognesi now lives and works in London. He is a multimedia artist with experience encompassing drawing, painting, cinema, photography and video. His influences include religious iconography, science fiction, street art, avant-garde manifestos and pop icons. Bolognesi's artistic identity is a multi-faceted one. He spent his childhood in an artistic environment and attended DAMS, the school of drama, arts and music in Italy, where he thrived upon a diverse means of expression.
For his second solo show in London and first with the gallery, Marco Bolognesi presents the three photographic projects Synteborg, Cyborg faces and Geiko, and the short film, Black Hole. Marco's established aesthetic approach to photography and film brings together otherwise quite separate objects and ideas to create an image that challenges our preconceptions. There is therefore in this case a sense of a social distortion of imagery and an expectation that is transformed into what is in front of you; a re-presentation of something we are familiar with. Bolognesi achieves this by using technical and physical processes of collage to appropriate cultural symbols and change their meaning, moving us away from the idea that human nature is static and towards an idea that change is possible.
In the project Synteborg, Marco Bolognesi takes our gaze and encourages us to see his work and ourselves in a new way. Bolognesi ingeniously takes elements from his previous project âWoodland', and digitally manipulates the pieces to create what is in his view, an ideal image of the woman. Elements are combined in a way that take us away from the more natural images found in âWoodland', towards an idea of a transcendent human, through a change in the meaning and perspective of the original parts.
In Cyborg faces, symbols from the modern technological world adorn, distort and pierce the bodies of the women in the images, creating a transcendent biological being. Through a carefully constructed and quite beautiful visual manipulation of the body, Marco Bolognesi creates an image of the post-human. In Geiko, Bolognesi's ability to use a limited range of adornments and poses to deliver an incisive cultural statement is paramount. Individually, the Geiko figures reveal a fascinating and fatal stillness but together they tell a story; a story about women.
In Black Hole, there is discontent with scientific experimentation on earth among the crew. Relationships are tested as the spaceship moves towards the idea of a new civilization, both physically and ideologically. By introducing us to the possibility of these partial and ubiquitous identities, Bolognesi draws us into a world of new possibilities, where bodies become paradoxical in their nature, showing us possibility for the other, for an alternative view of ourselves and society. It is with this vision that we can hope to achieve a promising and inspiring image of ourselves.
