PHOTOGRAPHY AS AN ART:

The photographic tradition of lyrical, poetic images based on evocative abstractions, printed in deep, rich blacks and fine grays, is of diminishing interest to many of the artists of today like Renato Rampolla. The idea of the purely photographic image as an art object fails to satisfy him. In his way of thinking, the photograph is merely the starting point or source material, not the finished product. His current work is less concerned with the purely “photographic” than those of his predecessors, and even they had shockingly less allegiance to the gelatin-silver print, with its attended demand for fastidious precision.

After mastering the traditional photographic methods and techniques this artist began to seek new means and ways to achieve “painterly results.” He received inspiration from this time in art history when formal abstraction was being subordinated to a search for new vocabularies. He explored the notions of a crossover of processes or aesthetics from other media when a photograph might have the feel of an etching, serigraph or lithograph.

Renato’s work represents a break with previous generations of photographers whose backgrounds were more traditional than artistic. His search for new means in art beyond the standard photographic image has led him to experiment with innovative new processes and materials to express himself. Thus the change in his approach to creating art was concerned with the nature of the medium itself.

Philosophically through his incursion into Pop Art lexicon, Rampolla’s imagery is granted an unprecedented status as a medium for artistic exploration which involved a recognition of the photograph as a seminal source of visual imagery for our times.

Rampolla felt the need to transcend the limitations of the monochromatic palette and explore color. To him, Abstraction that was confined to black and white denied the most dramatic element – the power of pure color to evoke feeling. This artist’s prints show both his interest in abstraction and colorfield painting and his intention to demonstrate that his photographs are indeed capable of covering the same aesthetic as painting, though on a smaller scale.

The oeuvre of Renato Rampolla reveals his interest in fashioning an “object” as much as an image; in gaining command over format, process, color, ground, and scale; and in creating an interactive process of art-making that transcends the previous limits of photography.

George S. Bolge, Director Emeritus

The Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida