The disguised identities Artwork - Limited Edition of 1

The artwork “the disguised identities” originates from a sociological reflection on the contemporary woman. The contemporary woman conceals herself behind false characters, sometimes recognizable faces or simply mocking facial expressions to express the daily anxiety of modern life. I took a black and white picture of four women and by seizing their atypical facial expressions reflecting their spontaneous psychic life I came to the conclusion that those women didn’t know and weren’t conscious of an innate and hidden feature associating them to all women of the world. In “the disguised identities” these women are intentionally disguised/concealed by using the stylistic features of graphic arts and comics: one has a a mask covering the eyes, one is disguised as man, one has a too strong make-up erasing an essential part of the face (the nose) and one has an over-the-mouth gag to make the spectator understand that to each one of them has been denied a part of the body. The mouth with its speech, the eyes so the sight, the feminine traits and the sense of smell linked to intuition, women’s sixth sense. These four portraits, apparently static, seem staring at the spectator who feels inadequate and can’t identify them fully . The feeling of disorientation is increased by the position of the portraits that are overturned and they seem, at a glance, reflecting one on the other like a mirror. If the spectator takes a careful look he will notice that the overturned portrait is not a simply copy or reflection of the other portrait, placed on top of it, because it is not just alike this last one. The compositional choice of the artist is driven by the message of the artwork: the contemporary conflict that women live. They show themselves as they are equal to men within society , while, on the contrary, their true personalities are often concealed, dissimulated or half displayed. They can display only sometimes and under certain circumstances totally as women, mothers, lovers, wives while always keeping their distinctive features. These four portraits have been created using a mixed technique: acrylic paints, ink, colored pencils, lead pencil and typographic print. They are then scanned, duplicated and some elements are added by using a graphic software. Finally the portraits are converted to a JPEG file and printed on white paper inkjet HP 80g/m2 print size 50 X 70 cm. The unusual aspect of this work of art is that it can be endlessly duplicated and the copies can be distributed to the audience. Moreover it is possible to enlarge the size of these portraits transforming them into advertisement signs exhibited in the street with a message of denouncement. (translation by Emanuela Turano Campello)