Maria Chirco works as a Fine Art photographer, Artist, Artisian. Maria Chirco was born in 1983 in Erice, iItaly and lives in Naxxar, Island of Malta.
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Maria Chirco, born in Erice (Italy 1983), has been working with Photography for several years. She studied at the ADBK in Nuremberg and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo where she graduated with honors in 2006. The German experience was a vital point in the progression for her artistic journey. Her works are mainly focused on an introspective research, using photography to give life to surreal and dreamlike images, tracing autobiographical textures, exploring feelings through the different contexts of existence. Her photos are mainly created with the use of analogue cameras and darkroom development. Maria Chirco is currently living and working on the Island of Malta. Her work has appeared in leading independent magazines around the world and been exhibited internationally in Germany, Italy, Malta, Turkey and USA.
CO: To those who are not familiar with you or your work, how would you briefly explain it?
MC: I've always loved black and white, as a child I would go through my grandmother's old photo albums in detail, looking at those portraits with great curiosity. I was bewitched by and immersed in the feelings which old photographs conjure. Curious to know who the subjects were, I was always asking questions to my grandmother, drawn in by their expressions, their clothes, or simply through the depth of that black and white which can tell you a story and pull you into a parallel and surreal universe made of lost memories. I guess that my passion for photography and black and white pictures was born from this experience. During the years I spent at the Academy of Fine Arts In Palermo and in Nuremberg that passion materialized and gave birth to what is today my work. A universe created through a very introspective research that gives life to surreal and dreamlike images. Exploring feelings and experiences, which I try to showcase through my camera and the use of black and white photography.
CO: What is the most important drive for you to create and why?
MC: I think that the creative drive in these years has always started from something that particularly fascinated me from an anthropological or sociological point of view, very often influenced by the different places where I have lived and from the history linked to them, as well as from the different people I have met with their innumerable stories. Owing to my Mediterranean roots comes the fascination for superstitions, religious and otherwise, together with the legends and folklore surrounding ghosts (from which I took inspiration for my work “Geister 2005”) that my grandmother often told us as children. I liked the idea of creating evocative images in which people could immerse themselves by experiencing emotions similar to mine. While I studied in Germany, (a period of great inspiration for my work and which probably gave that more "obscure" note to it), I could not help but let myself be inspired by the history of the country and by the various events that took place in those places as well as the vastly differing climate than my Mediterranean roots. Dealing with a culture so different from mine was fundamental, it gave rise to new incentive and new ways of seeing and interpreting my work and learning from my colleagues. Last but not least,I think my passion for heavy metal music has added a decided twist to my inspirations.
CO: How do your own experiences influence your work?
MC: I would say that my personal experiences are the basis of my work, generally those that really leave a mark inside me and that by choice I decide to remember and imprint on something larger. Usually I start from a concept or a subject related to a certain experience that I think is worth investigating further. Then I try to elaborate and work on the sensations I feel with respect to that concept or that particular situation and consequently I start to look for ways to express those sensations through images and symbols. Finally all is conceptualized through photographic and print techniques that I find most appropriate.
CO: Can you elaborate on an important moment in your life where you experienced a big change, chose to make one or another event which altered your way of thinking or your approach to creativity?
MC: My approach to creativity has certainly changed over time, or better, has changed after two important events in my life. When I moved to Germany at the age of 20 and when I moved to Malta at age of 35.
Living as an Art student at the ADBK in Nuremberg it was really an amazing experience. I received great inspiration from the 6 years spent there, both with Fine Art Photography as well as Paintings. It was a great opportunity to challenge myself with so many different new Artist and colleagues, probably the best years of my life.
Moving to Maltaon the other hand was different since I moved to work, so the space to devote to creativity was reduced and different. In the beginning it was very difficult to integrate and feel like myself in this little Island that now after 8 years I consider it a home from home. In itself this gave rise to this one of my works “The Maltese loneliness”, a series of images made between 2015 and 2018 that really helped me get through this change and find myself again.
CO: What do you want to communicate through your work? Is there a message - political or otherwise?
MC: My works typically are conceived through an anthropological historical study based on evocative memories, which I find a way to interpret into art. This process is very important and is the foundation for my work as it encapsulates history, personal experiences, emotions and my own interpretations.
Through this process, a final image is produced which evokes my own feelings but can also be interpreted through the viewer’s own feelings and experiences. The main focus of the final art piece is characterized by a surreal and evocative image whose aim of bringing out such emotions to the viewer as was conceptualized within the process. Such a work is represented in “DelleMemorie e del Nulla” - 2012
Probably one of the few times that I worked in a more political way was to create “Stille” 2009,a very strong evocative subject was used to show the paradoxical relationship between the Mafia and Christianity.
CO: Who or what do you value as a great inspiration for you creatively?
MC: The history of art and the history of photography have always been a fundamental cornerstone of my work. As a little girl I used to admire the works of Michelangelo Buonarroti his frescos, the “Sistine Chapel” and the “Last Judgment” with amazement and awe. I read his biography carefully and imagined him during his time around Rome and Florence. At that time I wasn’t thinking about photography. My true love and passion for photography started during the years of the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo where my teacher introduced me to two artists in particular: Francesca Woodman and Joel Peter Witkin. Surely they, with their wonderful, evocative, sometimes harsh and raw images, triggered that spark inside me that pushed me to create and elaborate concepts through photography until today.
CO: How does digital and social media affect or inspire your life and creations?
MC: I have never been heavily intertwined with social media, yet appreciating it as a powerful communication tool. It is a “place” where I can find various interests, make contact with galleries, clients, and collectors. In certain cases It can help to expand my knowledge and be used like an excellent showcase.
As for digital, referring to digital photography, I have had a digital camera and a smart phone for the last ten years, not that long. I have always photographed with Hasselblad 500CM and Ilford film. The way of conceiving photography when I shoot in analogue, for me, is completely different. Analog requires reflection, method, technique, and a lot of patience, digital, still from my point of view, is a much more immediate tool that probably requires less rigor. Certainly it has made the “magic” of photography within everyone's reach, through mobile phones, which obviously often comes in very useful for me too, especially when I take pictures to make my paintings or when I want to capture something instantly.
CO: Do artists of today have some kind of social responsibility?
MC: In this regard, I am reminded of what some of my former colleagues from the academy in Palermo achieved with the re-evaluation of the historic center through large wall paintings executed on the sides of buildings or what the association "Fiumara D'arte" did in Catania or the great work of art created by Alberto Burri in the 80’s over the ruins of Gibellina, which was destroyed by a violent earthquake in 1968.
All these works of art serve to re-evaluate forgotten places, to enhance their memory and historical anthropological value and to restore the beauty that is often ignored and forgotten. By restoring beauty, the artist restores social identity and dignity, giving importance to what has been forgotten, and especially to those who have been forgotten.
CO: If you could change one thing in the world today, what would it be?
MC: Empathy; there is too little empathy in the world. A profound and powerful form of interpersonal communication that allows you to tiptoe into the other's world to understand the intensity of their emotional experience, which however, and here is the difficult part, presupposes attentive and therefore active listening, which goes beyond mere words.
CO: What does «collective» mean for you?
MC: By definition it is something that brings together concerns or interests, a plurality of people or related things. In the artistic field I see it as a plurality of possibly similar people from whom to learn, draw inspiration or collaborate with. Living in an artistic community can be an excellent excuse to test and learn a lot about oneself and about others.
CO: What are the main reasons you collaborate with COLLECTIVE OSLO?
MC: In 2018I decided to embark on a solo journey. I had already known the destination for a long time. I was so fascinated by Edward Munch, by Norse mythology and by those wonderful landscapes seen only in books, but since I could not find enough money or anyone who would accompany me I had never done it. That year I understood that this was the right time, Ryanair finally offered direct flights Malta - Oslo, what better way to reach that land that seemed so distant and unknown. I spent a week alone travelling between Oslo and Bergen, with a ticket for the Inferno festival in my pocket and my camera. I fell so madly in love with Norway that I thought I wanted to be part of it in some way, to try and share my works, so I started looking for opportunities, associations, galleries or organizations that would promote art on the internet and through Facebook which is where I discovered Collective Oslo.
Collective Oslo was music to my ears, a way to share experiences with other artists who were certainly so different from me in this land that had remained in my heart. When I found your ad on Facebook I didn't hesitate to reply, so here I am.
CO: What role do you think art should play in today's society?
MC: In this regard, I am reminded of a quote written on the facade of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo “L’arte rinnova i Popoli e ne rivela la vita, vano delle scene il diletto ove non miri a preparar l’avvenire”(“Art renews the people and reveals their life, all activity is in vain if it does not aim to prepare for the future").
The theater was inaugurated in 1897, the author of the quote is unknown, but it makes us understand how much the role of art and culture has been and is (or should be) important up to the present day. The Importance is in the growth of a civil society, to harness the power to reveal the life of the people.
The social function of art, in a modern era dominated by automated production, by the emergence of technologies (and ways of living) which aim more at quantity rather than quality, at the obsessive attention of social media, becomes a strong point of reference, to reaffirm the essence of human nature, to enhance its "genius" and its dignity.
CO: What do you aspire to, in the near future and in life in general?
MC: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life” Surely I would like to be able to live economically based on my artwork, with what I do and with what I love to do. If I think about what makes me happy, that is creating, learning new things and traveling. To be content I always need new creative input, I like to give myself some sort of goal, and this makes me feel alive.
