Ella Rizzi
Melbourne (Naarm)she/her
Imitami, 2024
Imitami is a collection of works exploring the indiscriminate parts of my past - like a day at my grandparents' house or an image of an unacquainted, long-past ancestor in a photo album. With reference to family archive and photography, the collection has recurring symbols and differing states of recognition or familiar figurations; they share only a glimpse of familiarity. The paintings oscillate between confusion and understanding - loss and recognition. The works tell a narrative, much like reading pages of a diary or flicking through a photo album - telling the intimate feelings and showing singular moments, but falling short of revealing a complete, understandable narrative.
The series pays homage to my ancestors and calls for acceptance on loss and change.
Exhibited at VCA Graduation Show.
Imitami (The woman on the stairs), 2024
A sub-collection, visualised through the repetition of a singular found photograph. I focus on the image of a woman on stone steps, staring into the camera lenses; an unacquainted ancestor, a woman I never met. This unfamiliar face that oscillates, that becomes my own, becomes my grandmother, and again, becomes a stranger. In each painting I find clarity, desperately grasping at the imagery, selectively and obsessively trying to understand my past, my identity.
Exhibited at Trocadero Projects.