Sebastiano Mauri

Born in Milan in 1972, Sebastiano Mauri graduated from Film School at New York University in 1995. His short-films have won, amongst others the Martin Scorsese Post-Production Award as well as the Warner Brothers Award.

His artistic contemplations are generally concerned with how individual identity is shaped through many disparate, even contradictory identities while, at the same time, these different identities converge under the same features.

(Source : Paul di Felice)

The question of identity touches all aspects of my work, regardless of the medium used: painting, photography, sculpture, video. The identity of each individual is formed from many disparate, even contradictory identities. The priority we give to one of these identities over all others depends on the value system we adopt. I examine the multitude of ways prejudices can affect us and dangerously limit our ability to understand each other.

The subjects of my paintings present no context – hairstyle, clothing, posture, surroundings – that could place them in a specific time, place, or social class. While they evoke masked characters, they paradoxically lack any elements that could normally serve as a mask. The viewer must make an effort to understand them on a purely human level.

The installation “Shadow of Doubt” consists of a single portrait of many individuals. A video morphing images of men and women of all ages and ethnicities is projected onto an oil portrait on canvas, thus creating constantly transforming hybrid identities. Here, a moving context is partially reintroduced and serves as a discriminating element that modifies our reading of the image. The superimposition of images is not always perceived as such, and the viewer remains uncertain about the elements creating the difference between the subjects due to their transformation.

“Shadow of Doubt” seeks to determine if the characteristics of these different characters, their “mask,” the place where our identity is located, at least psychologically, truly define our perception of it, or if we are influenced by other elements such as gender, ethnicity, religion, age, or even attitude, weight, or hairstyle. A mix of genders, ages, and ethnicities, but also a multi-sensory influence between different atmospheres, techniques, and sounds.

The installation is accompanied by a two-headed soundtrack that pulls the viewer in two very distinct directions: a sacred chant by Hildegard of Bingen, a mystic from the year 1000, superimposed with an 1980s pop hit, “Touch Me” by Samantha Fox.

The series of photographs completing the installation results from the juxtaposition of images obtained through three different media. The video is projected onto a painted canvas, which is then photographed and printed. The final print blends the elements of different portraits and media into a single image, making it almost impossible to extract one of the components. The result is a series of credible portraits, meaning images that our brain interprets as coherent entities, all very different from each other, but which, upon closer inspection, all possess exactly the same features. All different yet all the same: a direction the world seems to be taking gradually.

(Source : Arles, Les rencontres de la photographie, Sebastiano Mauri)