Francesco Tori and Linda Zambolin: Echi Series
Hand-tinted and waxed photographs
First, I am in love with Northern Italy, and if I can’t live there, I can be reminded of life, the art, and the landscape. This brings me to Francesco Tori and Linda Zambolin, whom I formally met in person this past summer during a visit to Northern Italy while visiting L. Mikelle Standbridge, Founder and Director of Casa Regis: Center for Culture and Contemporary Art, Italy, whom I am a liaison and contributing curator for. A few months prior, their work was shared over email. While visiting Italy this past summer, Mikelle made it possible to meet with Francesco and Linda to review three portfolios of their work. I returned to Los Angeles, and my intuition encouraged me to do an exhibition of the Echi series, which opened in December 2022 at El Nido by VC Projects.
Echi (echoes) series consists of sixteen photographs hand-tinted and waxed by Biella-based Italian photographers Francesco Tori and Linda Zambolin. The artists set out on a project to capture a path divided into different sections that ascend to the top of a waterfall. This was done through the lens of Victorian aesthetics. Echi series works to capture waterfalls that remind one of the fluidity of the element itself.
A point of reference was English archeologist and pioneer photographer Fox Talbot’s calotypes. Invented by Talbot in 1830. Gustave Le Gray, Margaret Cameron, and others worked to expose photographic paper treated with silver nitrate and gallic acid to create soft illusory worlds. The finished product is not only a tender study of modern romanticism but also an exercise in the living body; perception becoming truth.
Francesco and Linda, partners in life and work, were challenged to go to a location that was of interest to the environment but not only because of the landscape. Instead for means of curiosity and reflection into their own human existence. Contemplating the balance between the inner and outer world. They chose Gran Paradiso National Park in Aosta Valley to experience “a sensorial and synesthetic point of view, leading them to tune to the frequency of a waterfall and to that roar of water that pierces right through the heart. A natural sound deeply rooted in us since the dawn of time, which eliminates the background noise of our thoughts when listened to over again and, like an echo, resounds and instills balance and peace.”
“In this case, the choice was dictated by the curiosity to closely observe one of the most beautiful landscape attractions of the Aosta Valley, near Cogne, in one of the most beautiful national parks in Italy. The waterfalls that take their name from the hamlet of Lillaz, located in Cogne, are characterized by three waterfalls from the Urtier torrent with an overall height of 150 meters. According to some geologists, the limit that separates the various types of rocks present corresponds to a "tectonic contact," or where in a few meters, you pass from continental rocks to rocks formed on the ocean floor.
Our photographic approach was dictated by what we perceived from the environment. There was no particular project in our minds. But more than anything else, there was the interest in representing the emotional state that the natural landscape transmitted to us through the image. As seen from the photos, the shots were sometimes taken with brief exposures and other times with longer ones. It was a path that led us from the bottom to the highest part of the waterfall where it begins and where a cross has been placed, a symbol of man and his passage.”
Interestingly, it was the most abstract work that I first felt the most profound connection to. These grounding compositions amongst the numerous waterfalls would make an intriguing exhibition for a Los Angeles audience. After returning stateside, my memory of these became a ritual of cerebral significance. As each work gave me solace within the urban chaos, I found at times impossible to bare living within the density of the city-life post-pandemic in Los Angeles. But that wasn’t all; my memory of the waterfalls also allowed me to surrender to the natural order of all things, which gave me hope and a sense of serenity.
I am very intrigued by the artist’s process and their dedication to inquiry and investigation. I think every artwork teaches or shows us something. I wondered if Francesco and Linda felt similarly and what they may have learned while capturing this project.
“That what is natural and surrounds us always has something to tell us and remind us. We are living beings with great potential, and we sometimes get lost in the noise of everyday life. And in reflecting on your question, it occurred to us that we often forget to put our feet on the most precious thing we have, the Earth. An immense creature on which we live and forget to interact.”
The photographs are digital and are hand-tinted and waxed, but they were influenced by 18th-century romanticism. How did Francesco and Linda accomplish this by today’s standards, and why? Francesco and Linda have revisited these techniques to not only differentiate their visual language in today’s world of photography but also to return to a sense of refinement.
“The project was shot and developed digitally but with an analog approach. We have a film background, starting our career in the early 2000s when film was still widely used. Over time, due to our profession as commercial photographers, we have used digital, in many cases appreciating the speed and flexibility of the medium and the possibility of manipulation in post-production.
This technology has come in handy to resume what was started in 1850 by the first photographers and the first printing processes. Artistically our point of arrival and research. So let's talk about calotype, images far from modern stylistic lines.
The choice of this intensely romantic aesthetic is dictated by the fact that thanks to the use of particular tonal ranges, selective blurring, and further manipulation performed by hand, such as pigmentation and hot creature, the observer is led to internalize the image and, therefore to perceive the message contained in it. Even the choice to print in that 15x22 cm format is not accidental. In fact, in addition to referring stylistically to the first prints of the mid-nineteenth century, we believe that the small size leads the observer to get closer, thus having visual and emotional empathy, creating a moment of sensory intimacy with what one observes.
There are no particular settings but a lot of analysis of old vintage photographs seen in books and many attempts until we find our photographic style that expresses what we feel as we approach the landscape.”
When asked about creating the dreamy compositions and the softness of the water, they remarked:
“The shutter speed was a choice to represent what the glimpses let us understand, becoming a means of conveying the message we interpreted while observing the waterfalls. The shutter times are approximately 1/125, to freeze the bounces of the water in those photos where the intent was to convey restlessness, up to more than one minute in those where we wanted to convey peace and meditation. Our artistic goal in the projects we create is to reflect a deep emotion in the image, hoping that the same emotion resonates in the observer. An observation that we believe can concern all forms of art. The technique is a means that allows you to know how to dose the tool; the difficulty lies in putting together the notions of an almost mathematical nature together with your own emotional perceptions to create that work, always speaking in an artistically generic way, which holds a fragment of the author's soul.”
Regarding finishing the prints, Francesco and Linda applied some manual post-production techniques to guide the viewer into the work. They hand-tinted the dry prints with coffee to create an emotional feeling like calotypes. “Technically, we liked the yield of the toning that it returned by immersing the photographic paper giving it the typical gradation of the calotype. The diluted coffee was the one that convinced us the most due to its warm tone, and diluted with various proportions of water; it produces a delightful and enveloping tonal response. Observing the freshly black and white print appears rather flat due to the tonal ranges deliberately sought after; in the development phase, immersion in the solution allows you to give the image, warming it, a more romantic and profound atmosphere.”
Another mystery to the illusionary world they created was the application of wax. Could the wax seal the work making it more archival in the long run? Francesco and Linda stated, “surely the print treated with wax has a longer duration. In our research, we have discovered that the same technique was once used by many artists to increase the life of the frescoes. An example is Leonardo Da Vinci, but already in the times of the Greeks, the hot application of wax was used. In our prints, however, the finish was designed to give a material perception of the surface as if to emulate the stratification of time that has passed. An essential element for us is trying to clarify what we do. The materiality of the drafting also determines a deliberate veiling on the images’ perception, accentuating the shot’s emotional sensation. Furthermore, the wax, for its natural tint, helps to give the final touch to the pigmentation tone we want and to rekindle the contrasts of the print.”
The exchange of working with artists from Italy has been enriching, not only to see work from a different perspective but to understand why artists may be inspired to create such works. There is so much to understand about human existence regardless of sharing the same language. Not only the way one might see the world but how one might process it. Because, after all, it is the visual language that counts the how’s and why’s are extra. Great art brings us together, to marvel and be part of the inter-connective journey that will always be a global movement.
Victoria Chapman
January 16, 2023, Los Angeles
El Nido by VC Projects
Exhibition information
Francesco Tori and Linda Zambolin: Echi
Hand-tinted and waxed photographs
Exhibition dates: December 3, 2022 - January 20, 2023
Website Link: https://www.vcprojects.art/francesco-tori-and-linda-zambolin-echi