ILENIA PEZZANITI

Artist’s Statement

Throughout history, women and nature have been subjected to man’s drive to conquer and control, as if women were a subspecies of man. As if both man and woman were not also nature.

There is no separation between what it is to be nature and what it is to be human. We are mirrors of nature, but nature is not human. Nature is the reigning supreme.

When we push beyond the distractions color can indulge, we are able to see ourselves as if we are looking into the stillness of a river: with clarity. By muting color, light is allowed to breathe deep, fluid breaths. Viewers have a chance to pause and reflect. Here we are able to see the multitudes in the simplicity. We appreciate a bare face. We fall in love with the truth. We learn to understand the depth of our senses because it is here, in a void of stimulation, in the smooth transition of quietness between tones, that we are tuned in to them.

These ten black and white analog photographs of fruit are representative of the parallels between nature and woman, and the uniqueness of the female sexual anatomy.

The mirroring of fruit and the female genitalia further dispels shame rhetoric around the many forms a vulva may take per individual and per lifetime. It is by opening conversation instead of keeping behind closed doors that we retire harmful taboo ideologies. Here, we begin to heal a poisonous wound caused by America's long standing rejection of the natural woman.  

Silver gelatin prints / 2019

$165 each