Valentina is like her work, otherworldly, with a grace and gravitas belonging to another time. Her hand embellished camera obscura photographs are like echoes of worlds gone by, lost moments endure as she transports us into an irresistible introspective gaze. Through her images the past bleeds into the present and we enter the intimate moments of a stranger in a distant land: a world which is usually beyond our reach and our understanding, preserved only in memories and archives or as antique remnants conserved from another world.
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Valentina D'Accardi
"Valentina D’Accardi’s hand embellished Camera Obscura photographs are like echoes of worlds gone by. Lost moments endure in her world as she transports us into an irresisitable introspective gaze"
Valentina’s images transcend, her photographs are bridges between our world and another and she speaks to the soul. The moments are real, they are human, private reflections with each detail a sign of a life being lived, still alive and burning through the camera. She is an artist who is not afraid to be vulnerable, to bear her humanity, she does not shy away from what is real or from what is difficult. In fact she uses her own body and presence as a vessel to tell stories, to connect with her audience. The within, is laid bear in her images and it is in her vulnerability that she gives us strength.
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Valentina D'Accardi
“We are all made of the elements and of our memories, we are now, others were then and more will be. And for these reasons we must truly inhabit ourselves, especially in the most private of moments”.
She is able to contain in a single image, a moment we all have suffered, a feeling of isolation, hiding away from the world, perhaps also sometimes from our own feelings. Curled and furled in the privacy and safety of the long grass, a tree’s branches, a forest, our bedroom. But around her subject is a light ever-present; it sparkles over skin, kisses edges and illuminates, glowing against the greyscale.
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Valentina D'Accardi
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Valentina D'Accardi
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Valentina D'Accardi
We all have our own wild forests, our own places we retreat to, our own subconscious pathways and trails we wind up and down, our own lost moments, found moments, agonies and ecstasies: but light always surrounds us. In Valentina’s world this is a burning light, a fire crackling, never engulfing the image but rendering it ever more alive, more real. Her photographs themselves have lived, they have endured, fire, water, nature. They are not perfect, they are layered, transient and marked by their journey, just like people. Such a far cry from the over perfected images of our age - so airbrushed that they no longer represent our lives.
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Valentina D'Accardi
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Valentina D'Accardi
Sometimes the fire becomes silver lightning and a kind of portal opens, a glimpse into eternity. Fire destroys but it also creates. We all have the fire within us and in moments that fire can engulf us, Valentina reminds us that it is within our power to wield this wonderful element and to live life with grace. We are all made of the elements, of our memories, we are now, others were then and more will be. And for these reasons, we must truly inhabit ourselves, especially in the most private moments.
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Valentina D'Accardi
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