"An eternal mystery"

photographic emulsion on aquarellic paper, Renaissance gold, handmade print

The work is an experimental analogue b/w photography on watercolour paper. The Watercolour paper was only partially treated with Renaissance gold, i.e. acrylic paint, and then photosensitised by applying silver nitrate with a brush.
Through experiments the artist has found out that the acrylic colour in contact causes a chemical reaction with the photo emulsion, which causes the photosensitive layer burst open and the gold in the underground reappears. Through the spraying of water from left to right and the artificial corrugation of paper, the figure receives a strong movement.
In this work the Italian artist looks from the outside, at a fragment of German history, by taking up and reinterpreting the well-known depiction of Ludwig II by Gabriel Schachinger. She was fascinated by how the much-discussed and misunderstood king anachronistically portrayed himself as the Grand Master of the Bavarian Order of Knights of St George. Ludwig II played with the construction of identity through pictorial representations, a theme that runs through Valentina Murabito's works.
(Suzan Kizilirmak)