ET FIAT LUX
40x32cm ink jet fotografski print / 120x100cm C-print na aluminij, okvir
skeniran barvni diapositiv film 10x12 cm
2016/17

The first part of the project Et fiat Lux consists of 9 photographs inspired by baroque still life paintings. The flowers on the photographs are a simulacra, a perfect imitation, the copy of real flowers, made of plastic, nylon and polyester. In their beauty lies the historical and artistic significance (as dead nature) and in the process itself (folding flowers into sculptures, for the photographic reproduction). These images are pure color compositions that evoke classical aesthetics and become an artefact of ecological pollution. They are dead even before being alive.
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Nothing stems from nothing, and everything is generated from the reproduction of something. Photography – that was invented in the 19th Century, in the so-called machine age, evolved through the 20th Century and transformed in the present era of digital technology – reproduces not only the world but also itself, for its identity is contained in the very concept of reproduction. In this complex research, Spela Volcic uses photography to reproduce artificial flowers which, in turn, are reproduced.
We are presented with two passages: the first from nature to the constructed that imitates nature, and the second from the constructed that imitates nature to the photographic image that reproduces it.
All this causes a mise en abyme, a significant concatenation, a superimposition between the real, the re-made/re-produced and the image that reproduces and is itself reproducible.

Roberta Valtorta

Part of the text from the catalogue: Et fiat lux, Roberta Valtorta; Pazzini Editore, Rimini, Italia (2018)

Some of these photographs have been commissioned by the Muses: the European Academy of Essences of Savigliano, whose flowers I used recall those used to extract the perfumes.
The work is shown in the permanent collection at Palazzo Taffini d’Acceglio, (MùSES) Savigliano (IT)