HELENA PALAZZI: Maidens in Mystic Lands

HELENA PALAZZI: Maidens in Mystic Lands

HELENA PALAZZI

“Maidens in Mystic Lands”

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

As a native Swede I have always felt a strong connection to the ancient Scandinavian and Nordic cultures. This heritage, passed down through generations by way of epic poems, sagas, and the alphabet Runes, forms the very essence of my inspiration.

Female forest spirits, formidable Norse goddesses, and the history of Viking women warriors, called the Shield Maidens, have taken a central place in my artistic and cultural explorations. 

To capture their mystical quality, which often comes shrouded in romanticized tales, I employ two distinct yet complimentary artistic methods. At first, I create large, softly colored, multilayered photographs. The images offer a tantalizing glimpse into the world of these legendary beings, much as I remember hearing about them as a child. I then weave my visions into textured encaustic photographs. This intricate technique involves the layering of photographs, wax, pigments and resin, to construct a multi-dimensional tapestry of stories and symbols. In the delicate interplay of adding and removing layers, I discovered a profound metaphor for the ceaseless evolution of life and the indelible imprints it leaves behind.

Residing in the Hudson Valley for the past few years has significantly influenced my artistic perspective. The mountains, meandering rivers, and lush forests evoke a deep connection to the Scandinavian landscapes of my childhood. The landscapes bring up memories of children’s belief in mystical beings and deities residing in the shadows, quietly observing. 

WHY I LOVE IT, by Aurélie

How could I not fall in love with this series which celebrates strong female figures?

Working on these images, Helena Palazzi went back to her childhood; growing up in Sweden, she would hear heroic tales of Viking female warriors, and stories from Nordic mythology and folklore, filled with powerful creatures and mysterious forest spirits. As she put it in an interview, “What fascinates me the most are the women and the goddesses of Norse mythology. They are fierce, they are strong, and they are full of spit and fire. They are unapologetically sexual. They just speak to me.” (Reality caught up with mythology when, in 2017, DNA technology revealed that an ancient high-ranking warrior was indeed a woman, a Shield Maiden as they were called. The stories were not lies, but History!)

The images presented here are photographic reproductions of one-of-a-kind portrait and landscape artworks Helena creates in her art studio. For the original pieces, she uses various media and techniques, from shooting with an infrared camera to add a certain otherworldliness to her colors, to printing the different image layers on fragile rice paper before sealing them with encaustic.

The reproductions are printed on luster paper, something with a little bit of shine, to better replicate the depth of the original wax-covered pieces.

The layered images draw you in as you discover textures, details, and symbols buried within them.

 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

A transplant from Sweden now living in the Hudson Valley, Helena Palazzi began her journey into photography as a teen. Growing up in the 1980s, she carried around a secondhand film camera and spent hours in a hand-me-down black and white darkroom set up in her family garage.

In 1993 her journey took her to her father’s homeland, Italy. With other young photographers, she founded a studio and enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia, Umbria. Less than two years later, she had her first solo exhibition. Many more would follow over the next few years, featuring her photography along with her mixed media work.

She landed in New York in 1998, set on pursuing a career in commercial photography. But fashion and beauty imagery drew her in and she quickly switched gears. Her seductive and refined images got her noticed and she started to work with some of the world’s most renowned clients and creatives.

Since 2019 Helena has made Kingston, NY, her home. She found there the time and freedom she needed to reconnect with her fine-art work and is now engaged in various projects, from fashion editorial shoots to paintings and artistic explorations.

Helena Palazzi in her art studio
MARTIN ADOLFSSON: Suburbia Gone Wild

MARTIN ADOLFSSON: Suburbia Gone Wild

MARTIN ADOLFSSON 

“Suburbia Gone Wild”

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

Within the past two decades, we’ve seen a huge shift in the balance of economic power. Countries that didn’t have a middle class 20 years ago have seen a rapid transformation from an agricultural economy to an industrial-based economy, so much so that a sizable percentage of the population now belongs to the middle class.

How does that affect the social groups who have been able to benefit the most from the economic boom? How does that influence one’s identity when the change is so rapid? Using a minimalist photography aesthetics, forgoing the fluff to focus on the essence of things, I want to explore that search for identity taking place in the suburbs surrounding Shanghai, Bangkok, Bangalore, Cairo, Moscow, Johannesburg, Sao Paolo, and Mexico City.

By omitting geographical and national traces, I seek to create a strong visual narrative between these disarmingly similar landscapes. The similarities interest me more than the national and cultural differences. My intentions are to create a visual narrative that takes the viewer on the front lines of an emerging global movement.

WHY I LOVE IT, by Aurélie

I’ve worked with Martin Adolfsson a few times and loved his minimalist photography and his intellectual approach to his subjects. He’s very meticulous — he comes in with a clear idea of what he wants to achieve and does it! Both as an artist and as a human being, Martin questions what’s in front of him and is interested in the meaning behind the surface. He always wants to understand the ins and outs of the situation he finds himself in.

His minimalist photography might seem simple at first glance, but it is anything but. Through seemingly straightforward images, his work raises thorny issues with no clear answers.

His series “Suburbia Gone Wild” is a perfect illustration of his inquisitive mind. His photographs ask what happens when the world follows an Americanized way of living. How does that uniformity affect local cultures and customs? What does it mean to be of a place if you live in a house that doesn’t pertain to that place? How do you balance globalization and individualism?

PS: Martin created with a friend THE best app on the market, minutiae, which prompts you at random times to take a picture of the minutiae (yet important moments) of your life. The app is a reaction to the overly-stylized Instagram and Tik Tok of this world. It’s both profound and fun. Try it… and thank me later!

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born and raised in Sweden, Martin Adolfsson now lives in New York City, where he obtained a one-year “Artist-in-Residence” at SVA in 2007. Mostly self-taught and equally fascinated by the art of photography and the possibilities new technologies offer, his work lives at the intersection of photography, technology and behavior.

His acclaimed book Suburbia Gone Wild and its minimalist photography focus on the search for identity among the new upper middle class in eight emerging economies. For it, Adolfsson traveled the world disguised as a potential home buyer and captured photos of nondescript model homes. The project was described by curator Petek Sketcher as “amusing and awkwardly eerie, as Adolfsson documents a curious phenomenon that looks more and more like the constructed world of The Truman Show.” Some of the photographs have been shown at Hagedorn Gallery in Atlanta, and the series appeared in many publications like The Atlantic, Slate, La Repubblica (Italy), and CNN among many other places. 

In 2014 Adolfsson was part of the inaugural class of the Art/Tech/Design incubator program NEW INC, the world’s first museum-led incubator created by the New Museum in New York. There, Adolfsson co-created the anti-social media app minutiae with Neuroscientist Daniel J Wilson. The app allows participants from around the world to participate in a daily ritual of capturing mundane ordinary moments at the exact same minute regardless of time zone. The project has received wide attention including Wired Magazine calling it “The curious app that captures your unfiltered life,” and the Financial Times saying, “Anti-social photo app offers antidote to Instagram and Facebook.”

Portrait of Martin Adolfsson