{"id":157221,"date":"2025-11-24T15:34:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T15:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/157221\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T15:34:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T15:34:07","slug":"framing-isnt-an-afterthought-in-manuel-grazias-mixed-media-works-its-front-and-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/157221\/","title":{"rendered":"Framing isn\u2019t an afterthought in Manuel Grazia\u2019s mixed media works \u2013 it\u2019s front and centre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italian artist Manuel Grazia<\/a> started out his creative journey on a three-year advanced photography course in Florence before moving into the kind of mixed media work that\u2019s shaping his unique portfolio today. Relocating to the north of Italy, the artist moved to Milan after his time at art school in order to develop his professional practice. Here, he found his personal style in a hybridization of techniques, discovering what he refers to as \u201ca more authentic and layered expressive language\u201d for image making.<\/p>\n

Influenced by everything from pop aesthetics to traditional textiles, the artist\u2019s work merges saturated, colourful images with unexpected framing choices, like his series of portraits of wrestlers<\/a> generated with AI, printed on fabric and cut and sewn into crocheted structures that look like the doilies on your grandma\u2019s kitchen table. Unlike most photo framing that lets the image do all the talking, Manuel\u2019s statement furry squares<\/a> or hand cutouts<\/a> have just as much to say as each of his photographs, if not more.<\/p>\n

For the artist, images often become \u201ca support for a tangible reworking\u201d, a starting point for much more. \u201cI love to integrate manual interventions such as printing on fabric, sewing, and collage, transforming the work into more complex and tactile objects,\u201d he says. This preference for analogue production stems from a desire that a lot of us have when making images: to get off our screens. Unreliant on any one digital software, the \u201cimmediacy and physicality of the manual gesture\u201d is what is drawing Manuel to this style of image making.<\/p>\n

Manuel\u2019s work shows that photographs don\u2019t have to start and end with the lens: \u201cI attribute equal, if not greater, importance to the conceptual design and creative research that precede the shooting of an image,\u201d he ends. \u201cI believe the photographic act is part of a holistic process that requires careful curation right from its preliminary stages, as well as an honest and visceral final re-elaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n