Tuesday 24 April 2012

Maurizio Anzeri


Maurizio Anzeri was born in Italy 1969 and now lives and works in the UK.
He makes his portraits by sewing directly into found vintage photos. Previously he used to do ink drawings with the photographs and wondered what it would look like to be stitched into. He put tracing paper over the photo and drew on the face until it develops. Sometimes the images come to him straight away due to the detail in the photographs but he mostly spends his time drawing on them. 
Once the drawing is done he pierces the photo with a set of needle like tools he invented and takes the paper away. The stitching on the images can obscure the faces because of the lighting and the amount of stitching used. 


Anzeri's work has influenced me to experiment with my photographs in a way that I wouldn't have considered before. I like the idea of mixing traditional photographs with a material such as thread. His works links to my idea because he uses old vintage photographs in his work which is what I am exploring. 


I like the way he's used brightly coloured thread over the sepia or black and white photographs as it makes the images more modern with the added colour. In my own opinion there is something daunting about sewing into people's faces but I think once I have experimented with sewing into my own photographs my preconceptions of this idea might change. I like the fact that he hasn't made the marks directly to the shape of the face, he has experimented with different ideas and shapes but focusing it only around the face area. I like the way it provokes different feelings and emotions when people see it, some have said they find it fascinating how the combination of two completely different materials have been used to create a interesting final outcome, whereas others say they hate the idea of sewing into faces as they find it disturbing. 

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