Submerged in water and veiled by murky fog, nude bodies float, fight, and fly to the surface in Ramona Zordini’s provocative photographs. Though on the surface, the artworks are driven by an undeniable sexual energy, they are laden with sentiment. In her recent series Changing Time III, Zordini creates narratives by posing nude couples in a variety of positions. A man wraps his arms around a woman who curls up, head down, under water. In another photograph, a man with an undercut wraps his arms around his nude partner who faces upwards and appears to be pushing against a confining force. Their legs intertwine and one feels their desperation, their need to cling and hold on to one another.
Changing Time III differs from Zordini’s earlier works in which a single female twists and contorts her body to reveal a breast, hand, or leg above the obscuring smoky surface. The recent works represent a clear development from the Italian artist’s previous engagement with the human form as beauty and sculpture, into a more nuanced interest in the body as communication. Aside from the photographs, Zordini also created prints on textiles to add a new, tangible dimension to her work. Carefully placed stitches take her work into the sculptural realm, accentuating the depths of the waters in which her figures lie submerged.
