by Dores Sacquegna
Her preferred subject is her own body—transfigured and reimagined through the lens of the history of figurative art. Yet her artistic position lies elsewhere: in building bridges between reality and dream, generating bizarre, fantastical beings that defy easy categorization.
In the Dolls series, the doll’s body is transformed into a fetish — recognizable only through its punk hairstyles and scattered references to the feminine sphere.
This brings to mind the archaic world, when humanity entrusted masks with the vital role of mediators — balancing the visible and the invisible, guiding us through the perilous battle with the threatening forces that inhabited the cosmos. Lightness, then, emerges as the hope of transforming what is petrified into something new, something alive.
Maria Luisa’s “dolls” resonate with the experience of pain and fragmentation, becoming “living masks” through which humanity can reflect upon itself and be reborn. Medusa, for instance, was a fearsome and dangerous creature, yet also, in some way, fragile—mortal. Again, lightness becomes the possibility of renewal: a fragile hope that what is frozen in stone might stir again with life.
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Maria Luisa Imperiali Works & Words 