EMANUELA CAU

Artists always bring experience with them, it flows through their work, it flows through their interpretation, it colours their perspective. We are all a conglomeration of our experiences, factors of need and understanding, most never join the dots, connect the experiences in order to chase something new, something tangible, but some do, and more often than not, those some are artists.

The Italian art photographer Emanuela Cau has been an actor, a director, an editor, a storyteller, a creator. She has brought a whole raft of creative experience with her to her present position, and it shows.

Emanuela's work is full of stills which give the distinct impression that they are from a much larger story, which of course they are. There are flavours of what could be, and flavours of what have been, but also flavours of the moment that is, a frozen access to the unique world of Emanuela, whether from her story as actor, director, editor, or from her story as girl and woman, or indeed the story of a human growing up in, and beginning to understand her environment.

Emanuela says that she is aware of the child within her, the one that still sits deep within her experience, and deep within her psyche. This is the child that all of us have, but that few can ever see, or can ever grasp hold of. Emanuela gently holds the hand of her inner child, her psychic infant, encouraging it to play and imagine, to fantasise and charm.

This is an artist that understands her makeup, her inner mechanisms of heart and soul. She understands that there is still wonder, still storytelling, still imagination deep within her, Those elements of wonder and imagination, flow out and through her inner child, becoming the outward work of her art photography.

Emanuela uses the best muse, the best sitter, and the best model that she can find, which is herself. She is her work, her manner, her character, they all pervade her compositions, giving each piece a haunting honesty and vulnerability of intent. This is the story of an artist, the story told in capsules of remembering, capsules of drama, capsules of intense storytelling.

This artists work is full of symbols, allegories, tragedies and hope, it is her creative diary of self. It is Emanuela's daydream of intent, the world that clearly is part revealed, but also part hidden. It is the world of twilight, where segments of our imagination have more room to breathe, more room to be themselves. 

A life less hidden is a life more lived, and perhaps that is part of what Emanuela is trying to show us. That there is more to life than our everyday experience, our trip to work, our conversations about the norm. There is another slice of the world, one less imagined by many, but no less real for that fact.

All work is copyrighted to the artist. Please ask permission before sharing imagery. Thank you.