Not from this place

Nashira Gallery is hosting in its new spaces in via Valpetrosa “Not from this place,” the first solo exhibition in Italy by Maria Positano, which can be visited from April 11th to May 29th, 2024.

The artist, born in 1995, is originally from Naples and was born in London, where she currently lives and works. From her sense of not belonging to a specific area or culture rises the exhibition Not from this place, a collection of  both two-dimensional wall works and three-dimensional works.

The works convey the artist’s uncertainty about the development of her own identity, which she has only just come to terms with and which she reflects in her artwork with multicultural and fluid overtones, artworks that eventually become both shields and mediums to express herself.

Our essence, or the version of ourselves that each person wants to present onto the outside world, lies in the body.

In Greco-Roman antiquity, armor and plate were common ways to cover the body and were considered a symbol of strength and authority. In fact, these components have historically been linked to the field of war, the ideals associated with it, and, if we shift our focus to the setting of gender dynamics, to patriarchal institutions and the maintenance of those structures.The artist is driven to subvert these ideals through her work, highlighting in her armor and shield the protective and defensive qualities that these unadulterated items possess. Therefore, the focus is not only on their aesthetic and historical significance, which the artist has often appreciated during her trips to Pompeii and the MANN in Naples, but also, and perhaps more importantly, on their figurative significance, which relates to the idea of self-defense.

Often associated with virility and raw strength, they were imagined to be made of materials that would only hold up equally well. Maria creates these objects with paper pulp, a substance connected to weakness and fragility, in an effort to show the other side of these artifacts and dismantle the harsh aspect that has been attached to them. Actually, her study takes shape thanks to the inventive application of repurposed materials like paper pulp, discarded textiles, clay, seeds, and threads. Even these materials, that Positano frequently employs in her artistic exploration, has been given a “political” worth as well as elevated with new shapes and meanings.

Unlike its predecessors, breastplates, armors and shields exhibited in Not from this place are not designed and produced only for the masculine body. It would be impossible to distinguish any gender difference for these variants.

Because of this, Maria Positano’s artwork transcends established socio-cultural standards, occasionally subverting the conventional order of the anatomy of the body itself. Her ambiguous profiles compel the viewer to consider what true definitions of strength and resilience are, and they suggest a deep examination and reclamation of the self. Which, in her production, she personally performs.