Paolo Ferrari: LA NATURA DELLE COSE

There is an order in things, a right measure, a balance.
And if not, if chaos, dissarray were to regulate nature, society, up to the humanized landscape, then Paolo Ferrari’s gaze intervenes to find the matter in disorganized objectivity, the primordial substance for the creation of one’s own ordered world, one’s own cosmos. Just as ancient philosophers drew from sensorial data to discuss the world of the invisible, so in the author’s shots the collected reality comes to life and takes shape, transforming itself into a metaphor of animated, indeed humanized, everyday life, open to the gaze. Contemplation is therefore the starting point and the arrival point; the absence of excess determines a classic vision of elegance, serenity and balance. Consistently with this assumption, the attraction that the ordered cosmos exercises on man, by virtue of the beauty it expresses, has always been linked to the idea of eidos form, which coincides with the “thing seen”. And why not translate the concept into the “thing photographed”? The gaze sees, chooses, collects, stops time and creates space. The inner vision allows the photographer to draw the ideal form of beauty from its representation. Keeping these elements in mind we can immerse ourselves in Paolo Ferrari’s images, fragments of common life, vibrations captured with irony and positivity. A witty modern atlas in which each image is complete in itself, but finds a reverberation, a refraction, a further meaning thanks to a skilful sequencing. Silent, current assonances and discordances that live from an eternal present. Colorful icons of the contemporary in which human figures, fragmented and immobile bodies, appear as ingredients of the composition, without ever taking over the balance of the representation. In landscapes, however, it is the lines that enchant and pamper the gaze, generating transitions that have the dimension of a sigh. Lightness permeates every shot. Lightness that is not a sterile void, but fertile ground for the contemplation of a possible beyond..
(from the text by Stefania Lasagni)

The shattering charm of a swing, a leap into the void, that vertigo like an inebriation which – averting me from the real world and the rational sphere – takes me to that suspended Middle Earth, to the edge of an imponderable abyss in whose darkness the whirlpool of life appears to me. It’s impossible to escape this game capable of awakening a sense of wonder, in a sort of monologue between me and myself, which investigates the many facets of the nature of things. Through shadows and reflections I realize that by removing myself from the things that surround me, I give them back their original dignity and, with it, also an autonomy from my attention, from my energy, which frees them and allows them to soar. The world becomes a mirror of my most hidden contents and my projections, in a completely unconscious and involuntary way. Windows as observation and dialogue points. Flights of flocks that arouse my imagination. Contexts aimed at making me listen to the extraordinary symphony of existence. Paolo Ferrari’s book is written with photography as communication based on the transmission of authentic messages, faithful to the author’s being and impossible to enclose in the mere convention of speech.
(from the text by Daniela Bazzani)