ROMINA RESSIA | the age of decadence: LONDON

5 - 19 June 2019

Prolific pictorial photographer, Romina Ressia, will have her first solo exhibition in England at HOFA Gallery this June. This exhibition will feature her critically acclaimed ‘How Would Have Been?’ collection which includes the award-winning photographs ‘Pop-corn’ and ‘Double Bubble Gum’.

 

Her success as a contemporary artist has flourished since the début of ‘How Would Have Been?’ in 2013. She has since exhibited her works in New York, Milan, Paris, Zurich and Buenos Aires, and has garnered many awards including being named Photographer of the year 2017 by the International Color Awards. This series, which was her first fine art collection and first critical success, continues to grow and new additions are set to be unveiled at the upcoming London exhibition at HOFA this June.

 

Romina’s art cleverly initiates dialogue on important contemporary social issues through the striking use of anachronistic tropes juxtaposed with mundane and banal elements of modernity. Indeed, the influence of classical artists like Da Vinci, Rembrandt and Velazquez is instantly recognizable in the palettes, textures, ambiance and scenes captured in Romina Ressia’s works, bequeathing them an air of familiarity which only serves to highlight the contradictory and sometimes confrontational presence of objects of modernity such as cotton candy, bubble gum, microwave popcorn and Coca Cola.

 

The theatrical absurdity in her pictorial compositions, which combine stylistic elements of Renaissance paintings and Pop art, and the dissonance of the stark contradictions captured therein have a surprising clarity, making for an honest critique through visual dialogue of received notions of modernity. In this sense, Romina succeeds in achieving her artistic intent which is not to recreate or refer to the past but to establish a frame within which to interrogate the perceived evolution and progress of society especially in respect to the role and identity of women.

 

Romina Ressia’s upcoming solo exhibition promises to bring together her most successful pictorial social commentaries for an artistic experience refreshing in its content and its unsettling interrogation of the true import of modern conveniences and values, viewed in the continuum of human experience that is past, present and surely, future.