Freud teaches us that man relates to time through a chronological succession only in conscious processes, the chronological flow of time is solely the result of the conscious activity of our work. Contemporary art tells of our time, the artist consciously analyzes the expressive matrix that most represents him and tells it through an urgent need, he tells his time.
In the flow of energies that releases, and at the same time imprisons, a work of art, time is not only the expression of the artist but also the inner meditation that leads to the creation of the work and perhaps the most important time, who benefits from it!
Analyzing the work of Maddalena Saponara, we chose to accept Sigmund Freud's invitation, we decided to take off our watch and not worry about the perception of time. The artist's approach to the fragments of memories and emotions that cross all time is meticulous, the time of the subject he represents, the time of the artist who creates the work and of us who are called to read it, piece after piece, overlapping after overlapping in a soft reference to auteur cinema.
It is a temporal association due to the fragments of black and white cinema where the silver film gives us a few colors, an elegance of whites, blacks, grays that seem to be the tones of Maddalena Saponara's soul.
The artist does not paint, he creates sculptures that are accidentally shown to us as paintings, he superimposes small fragments of poetry, newspaper, political cinema, he tells us about his time.
St. Augustine admitted that time does not exist, because it is only our perception, since reality is out of time, Magdalene's sculptural paintings are real, tangible but also out of time.
We are at ease scrolling through the works that tell an artist aware of having had access to a unique expressive medium, of having found the last piece of the puzzle.
Cinema, with its icons, gives us a new look at the images of the actors that Maddalena Saponara chooses to portray, they seem closer to us, the collage and mosaic technique gives us an image conceived in the artist's studio with a a gesture devoid of instinct but aware and elegant, it seems to welcome the images that it will portray with great grace, with the respect and sweetness that never becomes a job but an expressive capacity.a.
Maddalena re-elaborates and reassembles the works that were the fruit of inspiration for her by the great masters of the twentieth century. From Andy Warhol's Marilyn to Giosetta Fioroni's portraits, a world of reworking of the icons of the artist's soul opens up. They are autonomous, independent citations; each puzzle guided by the subject becomes an autonomous object, almost independent of the context and the reworking takes on an overturned uniqueness..
The user is guided to an upside-down reading where there is no subtraction from the content and image chosen by the artist but a conscious desire to stop time and with him the images that have marked the artist's memory.
In the portraits of unknown people, perhaps we have the strongest appeal of sculpture that becomes a canvas, the subjects seem to light up the work through their experience and their stories that emerge through the collage, remaining the artist's secret.
Therefore, Magdalene is conscious in her time, in her slow superimposition of images and small pieces of truth that deliver her to us.
(Serena Baccaglini, Massimo Ferrarotti)
Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize winner in 1999, in his book A wild swan re-elaborates and re-proposes, with masterful reversals and rewritings, some of the most famous traditional fairy tales. It is no coincidence that one of Maddalena Saponara's most significant works evokes the cover of the book itself, illustrated by Yuku Shimizu, which represents the Beast leaning out of a labyrinth of only roses.
In fact, the evocation and reworking through her creativity distinguish the style of Maddalena, who takes inspiration from books or cinema and from her work in the field of communication to create evocative and fascinating works, returning through her eye and his sensitivity known images and investing them with a new light.
Maddalena lives and works in Milan, art gives vent to a never dormant creativity, not even in a work made of numbers, in which the artistic vein can give unexpected fruits, bringing her inspiration to the most disparate fields.
The technique used divides space and matter and through it the artist composes the figure by breaking it down, his works take shape through both fragmentation and subsequent union.
So the artist:“This catalog represents the first sharing with the public of a path that I started several years ago and which represents a great one for me goal: that of being able to creatively express my world, carving out a space of my own and according to my rules..
Maddalena lives her creativity in the most spontaneous and pure way, living the artistic moment as liberation and outlet, as if it were a trail to follow. In the world of contemporary art where artists are too often influenced by fashion and the market, Maddalena represents a rarity, one light when it's dark outside, to quote one of her works, she creates her works to satisfy first of all herself and her innate need for expression through art, it represents what she likes, what excites her, be it a book or a face, in a free way and spontaneous.
Exactly how Maddalena manages to do this, art must be this: it must take the present, re-elaborate it and restore it with a new, personal and extravagant vision.
(Alice Pezzali)