Statement
Pieces of film were sliced into different shapes and sizes, then randomly arranged into bold abstract compositions, a contrast of black and white, transparent and solid forms. The film off-cuts are failed artworks, underexposed or overexposed, blurred rejects that usually end up in the bin. This waste was transformed into another art form. It continues my interest in waste and references Matisse’s cut-offs.
Emilio Cresciani is an artist and lives and works on Gadigal land (Sydney, Australia). He graduated from Sydney College of the Arts in 2012 in photo media. His artwork explores redundancy and urban change. His interest is in objects, structures, buildings and landscape in transition, and in particular the increasing number of ‘non-places’ that fill our environment. Waste centres, derelict service stations, road works, car parks and abandoned factories. Beauty is found in these places of repulsion, neglect or obsolescence. Inverted images of rubbish emphasise the negative side of consumerism like an x-ray points out disease. Portraits of people with their weekly waste explored Italo Calvino’s suggestion that we are defined by what we dump. Cracked car windows and night road works are a metaphor for the central place roads play in capitalism. Climate change is explored in works where ice melts onto paper in the darkroom. He has been a finalist in the Earth Photo Award London, KL PhotoAward Malaysia, Bowness Photography Prize, Northern Beaches Environment Award, Du Rietz Award, Mandorla Art Prize, International Monochrome Awards, National Youth Self Portrait Prize, and Semi Finalist Head On Portrait Prize. In 2020 he received a Dark Matter Residency, PhotoAccess, Canberra.