NO PORTRAIT
"In a reality forcibly based on appearances and the concept of collective perfection, Donatella Izzo's works escape those linguistic conventions and traditional interpretative mechanisms that often revolve around the idea of portraiture and the very perception of identity.
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The artist invites us to participate in a personal perception of identity—both individual and collective—that is now fragmented and deprived of a sense of belonging to its more transcendental aspects. Izzo's portraits do not correspond to a mere copy from life; on the contrary, they seek what lies hidden behind the subject’s appearance, expressing universal emotions almost always tied to the perennial and unresolved conflict between being and seeming, between soul and body, between the surface and the essence of being itself.
Her shots are an exemplary transposition of the torment and conflict that characterize the human condition.
Far from reassuring, the subjects reflectively lead us into a dimension of estrangement where the very idea of imperfection loses its negative connotation to take on higher values imbued with spiritual meaning. The focus of the project shifts to new codes of interpretation that shatter the classical concept of the portrait as a “copy” in favor of an “anti-portrait,” an introspective analysis of the depicted subject, almost always female—a universe from which Izzo draws inspiration and to which she pays particular attention.
Women are suspended in a sacred, almost indecipherable moment, yet still alive, as they are aesthetically reshaped." F. Multi