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"I reveal the secret of your uniqueness. I make it beautifully visible. Because the artwork is you."
“Occh-IO /Eye-I” is a photographic-performative project born in order to capture and amplify a peculiar aspect of identity, belonging to everyone: "the eye". It emphasizes the word “I” to evoke the singularity of each individual.  

“Occh-IO /EYE-I” is a special and particular part of Anna Laura di Luggo ‘s creative path.
It is a journey to discover the sublime, the beauty of human identity, the uniqueness of the self being considered as the basic assumption to explain relationships among individuals. 

  Annalaura di Luggo’s work introduces the new concept of “EYEPORTRAIT”. The exploration of this “EYEPRINT", partially apparent, but indelibly marked in everyone’s eyes, evokes a peculiar trajectory of research, aimed to find a potential answer to the innermost questions of every single person about the knowledge of ourselves and of the world.

  It is a search for the individual identity, for other’s nature, rummaging almost intrusively in the depth of a person’s eye, digging among the signs of his/her uniqueness, to find traces of own one. A difficult and harsh trip, which runs on steep and dangerous paths, though being at the same time delicate deep and punctilious. It starts catching the detail of a particular part, as a way to open a comprehension path over a wider scenario made on a field where  both the observer and the observed switch roles continuously.
The real issue at stake is the highest possible stake: the comprehension of the self being.

  "Every human being - Annalaura di Luggo tells - is a unique and wonderful creation of God which embodies a world to explore. For this reason I decided to start my investigation from the eye, which, for the ancients, was the mirror of the soul. " The eye I wanted to represent becomes an instrument of equalization that is independent from gender, race, age and social status "

  PATH

  The main assumption of this artistic path is the will to go beyond a superficial glance. A face-to-face interview with the protagonist, a dialogue about the important things in his/her life and personality, comes before the shooting. The intention is to create an  intimate feeling between Annalaura and the person being shot, who, in a certain way, is pushed to express his/her emotions.

  Then the shooting starts. Capturing in the eye something that goes beyond a superficial observation or that is not "technically" perceived by the simple look is the artist’s desire. The focus is concentrated on the iris; the eye may be marked by stress and time, but the iris remains alive and wonderful, it maintains intact as the expression of the singularity of the individual.

  Shooting strictly reflects the intuition of the photographer. It is realized in the dark, not allowing the iris to reflect the surrounding environment, minimizing the influence of the external space.

  Most macro lenses are not sophisticated enough to capture the three-dimensional elements, so it is necessary to use tools borrowed from ophthalmologists, to reproduce, as closely as possible, the structure of the eye. Far from being  a pure exercise in style on iris colors, the  focus is on the image of the depth of the organ perceptible only through a three-dimensional rendering.

  The post production is almost minimal, Annalaura di Luggo does a strategic move in order to achieve the best expressive result; while her work is high-definition and high-fidelity, she skips any kind of invention, without escaping “creative" needs, which require interpretation, as an essential condition of any representation. The eye is the only protagonist, disclosing all its cracks and roughness, emergencies and depressions, particularities and special colors, both its empty and full parts.

  Life, after all, is this synthesis, never fully accomplished, between presence and absence, difference and repetition, permanence and lack, balance and unbalance. The work of Annalaura di Luggo wants to be a celebration of life proposed in its essential "complexity." It is a possible way to highlight the value of human being, its identity, its meaning, its rights.

  "The attention given to the eye - Annalaura di Luggo says - is emblematic of an overall interest in other’s life, in personal sensibility that every individual shows in order to be able to comprehend and welcome him/her. It’s also a way to remember how useful can be to look deeply in people’s eyes, a concept  which too many times, many people, tend to escape”