Loto Nero
Costanza Gastaldi
The Loto Nero (black lotus) photographs were made during the trip to the Huangshan Mountains (the Yellow Mountains) located in the eastern provinces of China, in September 2018. With a view camera, Gastaldi browsed the area, used dizzying staircases carved within the rock and crossed the pine forests that unfold at the feet of granite peaks over 1000 meters high. In this nature permanently immersed in the mists, the photographer captured the mysteries of a site of stunning beauty, which once inspired Chinese poets. Her wanderings restored a sensitive experience where the silence, the density of the flora and the perception of a space that disintegrates under the effect of clouds heckled by the winds give the site a certain hypnotic power.
Specifications / Credits
Title: Loto Nero
Artist: Costanza Gastaldi
Year: 2019
Process: Hand-pulled photogravure
Photogravures: Fanny Boucher
Paper size: 21in x 30in
Image size: 15in x 24in
Edition: 6 (2AP)
Collection: Costanza Gastaldi
Costanza Gastaldi (b. 1993, Italy) is a photographer and artist working with heliogravure. Her interest in the process stems in particular from the subtlety of the rendering of the shades of gray or the depth, almost tactile, of the blacks. Her practice involves retouching the digital image in order to accentuate the qualities of the gravure print. Cultivating the formal ambiguity between photography and drawing, her landscapes instill a feeling of strangeness, even unreality. Living and working in Paris, Gastaldi divides her time between her methodological research, her time shooting on location in places such as the Arctic circle and the Huang mountains, as well as the development of her exhibitions which assume an immersive form, integrating the photographic object and sensory installations. She is currently represented by Novalis contemporary art design (Hong Kong), by Kahmann Gallery (Amsterdam) and by SITDOWN Gallery (Paris).