Mattia Greghi: an escape to the limits of the portrait reaches the ocean

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For those who have attempted to re-create the world, the sea, pure opportunity, has often been a destination and vehicle for the beyond. And also, because it is merely a volume, for those who seek the limits of linear photographic research, of identity.

What do a greyhound, Mahmood, a clock radio and a mouldy orange have in common? They are potential subjects of portraits; it is possible to extract them from their context in accordance with rules of composition, underlining and enhancing the characters by blurring or neutralising the background (the world). Men and women, famous or not; animals and objects; stages of matter that were considered obscene have become a diverse beauty: all these things have been the subject of portraits for time immemorial, or at least for centuries. Mattia Greghi's work lies in tracing this type of framing in such a way that even a charging iphone or a full wastebasket join the same formal series, both highlighted and made metaphysical. There is a similar dichotomy in the subjects: the interiors, the objects (the design), the familiar faces are markedly Milanese, at first glance they appear Milanese. Then there are beaches, coasts, sunsets that conjure up the ocean and overseas. Ambiguous physical space is transformed into double imagery: the first identified by the study of form, the second characterised by the detachment from superficial forms.