EKPYROSIS

ALESSANDRO IDINI

//Alessandro is an Italian photographer based in Olbia, Italy, passionate about photography from childhood. Having graduated from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, he worked in fashion photography in Milan and Paris, later in sports journalism Fine art photography was something he picked up at the dawn of the new millennium. We present some of his abstract series Epkyrosis.

“appearances are often deceiving.”

Aesop

What draws you to the arts?

“What most fascinates me is the possibility of demonstrating that photography, while representing reality, can approach abstract perception like a painting and in this way convey the same sensations.”

What do you like best about the project you submitted?

“The Ekpýrosis Series wants to be a tribute to the work of photographer Aaron Siskind, especially to his abstract production from the late 1940s and early 1950s.“

The Ekpyrosis Series prints are Alessandro´s research project on the concept of photographic abstraction that originates from the de-contextualization of an ordinary object, or part of it, to the point of dissolving any reference to visible reality. It is in this way that the formal element, reduced to fragments, is regenerated towards expressive solutions full of shapes, colours, and emotions.

Some words about the term “Ekpyrosis”: In ancient Greek this means “burn out” and refers to a fire or the fire that is imagined to end the existing world. Ekpyrosis is an idea of Stoic physics, a natural philosophy of some of the Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome. These ancient philosophers tried to explain the natural processes at work in the universe. In ancient stoic philosophy, things will gradually resolve into elements, and the elements into the primary substance, to be consumed in a general conflagration, followed by a cooling and renewal cycle. This idea in antiquity was the basis of the myth of the Phoenix, the “firebird” who is reborn from its own ashes after death. In modern physics, the idea of an “Ekpyrotic universe” has again been proposed by a number of cosmologists to answer the question “What happened before the Big Bang?”.

Alessandro´s images are also his tribute to the work of photographer Aaron Siskind, especially to his abstract production from the late 1940s and early 1950s, also appreciated by Mark Rothko, Franz Kline and other exponents of abstract expressionism.

Click on the photos to see a larger image. Some images may be cropped for layout.