URSULA FERRARA – Career Honor at Imaginaria 2024
Photographer, painter, designer, animator, independent experimenter, free soul, visionary, poet of the image. Ursula Ferrara could be defined in many ways, both thinking about the creative production that she has developed over the years, and looking at her work methodology where independence, tenacity, rigor and patience are combined with an omnivorous attitude towards the use of techniques and different languages. Born in 1961 in Pisa, she attended the Porta Romana Art Institute in Florence, where she was able to study advertising graphics and photography, as well as delve into various artistic techniques, from drawing to engraving, from lithography to watercolor and tempera in oil. Hers is a path of artistic growth that starts from a peculiar genetic base: from her geologist father Ferrara inherits the passion for photography, and it is he who gave her the first camera. At a very young age she began to shoot, develop and print, embarking on an experimental path which she continued together with drawing. And it is here that the other genetic component vibrates, the maternal one: daughter of the eclectic painter and sculptor Milena Moriani, Ursula receives from her not only the gift of graphic and pictorial ability, but inherits her visionary capacity and the courage for free experimentation, essential components for the construction of poetic worlds where the memorial element and intimate experience blend with the most creative imaginary dimension.
In 1984, Ferrara saw the exhibition Portrait d’un studio d’animation in Paris, dedicated in particular to the National Film Board of Canada. It is there that she has the opportunity to discover the animated films of some emerging authors, but above all it is in that context that she realizes what ‘making animation’ means, being able to attend demonstrations of the creative production processes of some directors. And it’s like a revelation: the passions cultivated since childhood, drawing and photography, were there in front of her eyes, closely linked in the animated film. From that moment on, Ferrara embarked on a self-taught path, studying in a solitary, tenacious and patient way, without guides or teachers.
Ferrara’s film production covers twenty years, from 1986 to 2006, years in which she made eight films in 16mm film (the second four were then developed and printed in 35mm) for a total duration of twenty-five minutes. Considering that every second is made up of twelve to twenty-four plates filmed at one stop, it is easy to understand the quantity of drawings produced to make small films, but large and precious masterpieces which, despite their short durations, unravel a complexity before the eyes of the spectators. creative and emotional, intense and touching. Ferrara’s films have traveled around the world, obtaining awards and recognition everywhere, from Cannes to Berlin, from Tokyo to New York, from Toronto to Edinburgh. Retrospective exhibitions have also been organized by Nanni Moretti as part of his Sacher Film festival, by the Isola Film Festival, by the Fano International Film Festival and by the Locarno Film Festival.
Each film represents an evolutionary step, as regards the techniques adopted but above all for a sensation of global ‘growth’ that is perceived from production to production and which conveys an intimate and personal maturation. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the first film Lucidi folli (1986, 2′) starts from the incessant evolutions of an essential line of black marker on transparencies: without shadows, hesitations, fragmentations, the sign generates continuously evolving shapes and subjects, in a representation of the theme of love between the sacred and the profane, in which Ferrara liberates an imagination without a script or storyboard. In the subsequent films, Congiuntivo futuro (1988, 2’15”), Amore asimmetrico (1990, 2’40”), Come persone (1995, 1’23”), the black and white work remains but becomes that of the pencil on paper. The sign, now softer, is enriched with shading and chiaroscuro, the drawn figures acquire a more three-dimensional body and the graphic complexity is also accompanied by an evolution in the construction and relationships between the planes which gradually take on a more cinematic character. Between continuous transformations and fades, maintaining the metamorphic and rapid nature of the images, Ferrara combines elements taken from everyday life and dreamlike ideas, blurring the boundary between what is life and what is dream, showing the many faces of love, of relationships, unions and conflicts: all suggested, hinted at, fleeting, amidst surprises and wonders that stimulate close and complicit participation in those who observe. In the films we also find echoes coming from the history of art: the logic of surrealist automatism, as well as some faces inspired by Constantin Brâncuși,
Amedeo Modigliani and Otto Dix seem to appear in the future Conjunctive; in Asymmetric Love we find together with Escherian architecture the metaphysical dimensions of Carlo Carrà and Giorgio De Chirico, as well as figurative hints at Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin and the cubist disarticulations of Pablo Picasso or Fernand Léger; in Like people the references seem to move from the pictorial sphere towards twentieth-century sculptural experiences, from Brâncuși, to Ugo Guidi and Henry Moore. In this first corpus of films, in which the sound part is made up of musical pieces chosen by the author, in addition to the evolution of the line we can notice an ‘opening’ of the concept of surface: from the constrained limits of the sheet, through the acquisition of a more cinematic look Ferrara broadens the horizons of the visible, building a space that goes beyond the flat surface, accessible in every direction, decomposable, free from the laws of gravity.
With Quasi niente (1997, 2’20”) we witness some radical evolutions: Ferrara begins to work with oil painting on acetate and to create the sound concepts of films, where the recorded data of reality are mixed with short music. The short films, therefore, are enriched both from a chromatic and sound point of view, showing an increasing liveliness which also corresponds to a greater perceptual stimulation of the viewer. In this film the realism of a family breakfast merges with the poetic depiction of the feelings of love that drive relationships, all conveyed by dynamic and vibrant brushstrokes of colour. In addition to the cubist reference, here the intense, spatula or dotted pictorial strokes recall impressionist techniques and Vangoghi’s visionary nature. The house, the relationships that circulate within it, the theme of unity are the basis of Five Rooms (1999, 4’23”), created with oil pastels. In the film the idea of ’everything united’ is expressed in the circular relationship that the author establishes between individuals and spaces, where the human figures seem to sink and re-emerge from a dimension without margins, exploded in the metamorphic and changing transformation of the colours. pasty. From a visual point of view, the film approaches the search for informal art: the images suggest, rather than describe, the intricate interweaving of events (even small ones), the relationships, the events that make existence around the artist vibrate which is at the centre. With La Partita (2002, 4′) the transition from figurativism to abstraction becomes even more evident: the colors and signs create more indefinite spaces as well as less delineated figures, for a ‘pictorial whole’ governed by an extreme mastery of vision dictated by mature knowledge of film plans. The field of vision does not coincide with the football field: on the contrary, it is the off-field that interests the artist, the gaze on the spectators with all the fields of internal visions that they offer, including past and future memories, joys and fears. News (2006, 4’11”) is the last of the films on film, the most complex both for the themes covered (a selection of distressing news from around the world) and for the mixed techniques adopted (drawing, painting, collage) , elements that lead it back to neo-Dadaist thought and techniques.
Over the course of twenty years, Ferrara has produced works that leap onto the screen like fireworks, leaving in the viewer luminous traces of enchantment and fascination, reawakened memories and tangles of sensations. They are films that display a haptic quality as they seem like fabrics to be touched, colored papers to be smelled, pinwheels vibrant with life.
If in 2006 the work on film stopped, from 2007 to 2013 Ferrara took a new experimental path, combining more artisanal and pictorial work with digital shooting or even using the iPad graphics tablet. She did this by collaborating on artistic projects and also on film productions which saw her involved in the creation of animated inserts: among these I would particularly highlight the collaboration on Stefano Consiglio’s documentary film, L’amore e Basta in 2009, the one with Teresa Marchesi for the making of the documentary Pivano Blues – Sulla strada di Nanda in 2011 and, again in this year, the participation in La Passion di Laura, documentary by Paolo Petrucci on Laura Betti (2011) (painting on Ipad), shown at the Rome and “Evviva Giuseppe” (2017) documentary films by Stefano Consiglio.
One of her latest works is linked to a project by Concita De Gregorio: “Princesa and other queens”, a volume, published by Giunti, where 20 women, each in their own way, through writings, poems, photos, drawings, comics, tell a song by Fabrizio De André. Ursula’s work is dedicated to the song “Princesa” and became the cover of the book.
In recent years, after having tested herself with digital both in video and with the camera, Ferrara has returned to analogue photography, her first love, with the same experimental spirit that has always animated her. This path led her to develop research on ancient photographic techniques, the wetplate (wet collodion), the large format and the ultra large format, up to her latest invention: a van transformed into a giant camera which also carries out darkroom function. Between the study of exposure and poses, hands in acids, rinsing of paper, with the charm of a little girl eager to learn, the artist not only rediscovered one of her first passions, but enriched it with artisanal construction and own machines. The photos taken, including portraits, very close-ups, particulars or details, seem to come from another era, taking our gaze back to a century ago and beyond, rewinding the tape of history to the origins of the images. Once again Ferrara continues to enchant with her vision, never predictable, always poetic, with that experimental attitude typical of the avant-garde, of those who set out to discover new worlds. Once again, she is a pioneer.