Discovering Candida Mezzasalma

Inauguration of "Flora", the new upcoming exhibition of the emerging photographer.

It is called "Flora", the new photographic exhibition that will inaugurate tomorrow, November 14th at the Risalto, space and cultural association in Bologna.

In Literary tradition, Flora is the goddess of spring, flowers and flowering. According to Ovid, Flora corresponds to the figure of Clori or Cloride. One spring day, while the girl walks through the fields, Zephyr sees her and falls madly in love with her. So he kidnaps her and joins her in marriage. As a demonstration of love, he allows Flora to reign over the flowers of gardens and fields. For its part, the goddess offers men an innumerable variety of flowers and honey.

Observing the photographs of Candida, Flora, relives of its divine essence, relocating itself in a modern photographic vision, where we can see links to the delicacy and naturalism of Botticelli's paintings and the surreal and fairytale dream.

The twenty photographs displayed at the suggestive venue of Risalto, a creative workshop, will dialogue with the works of other artists, creating a unique mix of photography, illustration, craftsmanship and fashion.

About the Artist:

Candida Mezzasalma was born in Ragusa in 1992. Following her high school diploma she obtained a three-year degree in classical literature at the University of Catania with an experimental thesis aimed at investigating the influences of the Latin poet Ovidio in the writer Italo Calvino, electing a points of reference and comparison the respective works entitled "The Metamorphoses" and "The Cosmicomics".

After a year of study at the University of Coimbra in Portugal she moved to Bologna where she currently attends the master's degree in Italian Studies and collaborates with the Center of Contemporary Poetry of the University of Bologna.

In her literary studies she has always supported, with equal energy and passion, an interest in the visual arts, in particular for portrait and fashion photography.

Since 2010 she has been able to perfect her artistic training in photography at schools and individuals and set up two personal photographic exhibitions.

Her photographs have been published in the Italian periodical Freetime, on the fashion magazine Atlas Magazine, on the literary magazine Paragraph (both based in New York) and on Vogue Italia.

About her works:

"Her photographic research is characterized by the strongly dreamlike, surreal and fairytale sign with which the relationship between female portraits and nature is explored. Human and natural elements are often caught in an ecstatic relationship of strong almost metamorphic symbiosis. Poetry, literature, fable, nature, flow into the same creative process to give life to images characterized by a strongly pictorial style: dreams painted with a photographic lens that transcends reality."

"Birth of Venus" © Candida Mezzasalma

So, all that remains is to go in Bologna and see the exhibition, and give her new follower on Facebook here and on Instagram here!

Get tooned and don't miss the art party!