Acquadolce (2017 - )

Aldo Sestini wrote in his 1963 work Il Paesaggio (The Landscape) that the Italian “landscape acquires higher interest and offers more spiritual pleasure when it is observed by those who are able to recognize the compositional elements, the peculiar variety and the natural and human factors that contributed to form it.”

The work Acquadolce of Martina Giammaria rises to this challenge with her interrogation of the evolving relation between ancient and modern, and organic and inorganic forces in defining contemporary Italian identity and the regional landscapes that so profoundly shape it.

The man-made components – or in some cases subtle interventions – of Giammaria’s landscapes not only integrate with the organic, but serve to facilitate human interaction with nature, providing sites for play and passive enjoyment, as well as vantage points for the essential act of gazing out upon the natural world; she, too, toys with scale, her subjects frequently offering the only measure against which to gauge the otherwise sublime boundlessness of sky, water, and mountains.

Elizabeth Breiner, 1968photography, text for the exhibition Italian Landscapes at the Consulate General of Italy in New York (April 2018)