Concorso Fotografia Industriale

“Essenza” is one of the five works awarded in 2021 at the first edition of the ANVER Awards photo competition organized by the ANVER Industrial Painting Association with Media Partner “La Rivista del Colore”, in order to distinguish, promote and encourage public recognition of industrial painting. www.larivistadelcolore.com/anverawards/

The theme of the competition was “Beyond surfaces” and the photographs in the competition had to capture moments or situations in which the industrial painting activity was not exhibited as a finished product, but was able to represent its essence during its process.

The caption that accompanied the work in competition describes the image but also my experience during the photo session, based on my research for understanding every aspect of the industrial process.

“What is beyond the surfaces? What is the essence of the industrial painting activity? Here are the extraordinarily rich and profound questions to thoroughly listen to while looking at the industrial painting process with an aesthetic eye.

The image shows us the man himself becoming a cloud of paint that rests on the surface to be painted, thanks to his hand and his intentions that move together in harmony. The horizontal surface, although it divides the man from the panel behind, unites them in the two-dimensional world of photography, making him look like a brushstroke of color that emerges from the traces of paint behind, from those atavistic signs that reveal presences, witnesses, souls of colors impressed over time.

 The gesture of today’s worker seems deeply linked to the gesture of prehistoric man who marks the stone surface of his home with color. What moved his hand, what need? Once in an upright position, man freed his hands, thus freeing the purely spiritual part of his being, the creative force, his greatest strength, which makes him unique among all living beings: the need and the ability to create, shape with the mind and realize with the hands.

But man is also connected through the tube that goes down to the floor and exits the frame to something that remains separate, which seems to keep him anchored to a reality that precedes and continues with respect to the moment of color painting itself.

This image thus gives us the answer to the questions we’ve been asked at the beginning:

…what is beyond the surfaces? what is the essence of the industrial painting activity?

 …the immutable essence of the creative act anchored in the ineluctable rhythm of the process.”

The jury that evaluated the works was partly made up of members of the ANVER association, partly of the popular jury. The award ceremony took place on 9th September 2021 in Milan, during the “Finiture Green Navigli Colors” event of Milano Design Week.

Thanks to Alessio Bernardini and his AB Wood Finishes where the photo session took place https://www.abwoodfinishes.it/.

I also thank Tony Miroballo and his group of study on Esoteric Photography for bringing the contest to my attention and supporting me during the voting.