As part of the fellowship residency 2015 at the Camden Arts Centre Working across a range of media including sculpture, collage, animation and video, Salvatore Arancio’s main interests lie in the potential of images. Departing from their literal meanings, he creates new juxtapositions that are evocative and deeply disquieting. His works look to nature and science for inspiration, unsettling any hint of the sublime by re-framing images and the viewer’s experience.
Upon entering a room through a small side door, the atmosphere was as though I had arrived on a new planet, with low warm lighting and the sound of metallic yet delicate objects clanging together as though they were metallic insects communicating to each other in the darkness.
In the center of the room were a range of strange and wonderful objects, each with its own personality. The objects looked organic as if they had grown out of the ground, in a spectrum of sparkling green hues. The atmosphere of the room made me feel like I was part of the piece, a newcomer to this strange land I was here to study, watch and learn as these creature grew, and shifted with the space.
The objects were made out of ceramic, an earthenware material – so it seemed like a good combination to make the work appear to be organic, and natural, roughly made, the finger marks still fresh on the surface.