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| Soul Steps I.03 -- Luigi Fieni |
photo-eye is happy to present a new body of work from
Photographer's Showcase artist Luigi Fieni titled Soul Steps.
Like his other portfolio on the Showcase, The Room of 1000 Demons, Fieni's photographs take us to the Mustang region of Nepal. The
remote former kingdom is located high in the Himalayas north of the Annapurna
range and was closed to outsiders until 1991; to this day tourism is restricted to
around 1000 per year. Today Mustang is often associated with its religious
art, which is what brought Fieni to the region in the first place. A
conservator with a special skill in reproducing a variety of painting
techniques, Fieni has spent years working to restore and protect the rich cultural artifacts of the area in a program that simultaneously trains artists from the region in
the art and science of conservation, giving them the tools to restore their
heritage themselves.
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| Soul Steps I.04 -- Luigi Fieni |
Fieni's conservation work has given him a unique perspective
on this region. His photographs reveal his painterly mindset perhaps most directly
in The Room of 1000 Demons series where the motion lines in his images create
direct analogies to brush strokes, but Soul Steps is a series shot with a
similar sensibility. It is a way of seeing a place through a deep knowledge of an area,
an understanding of the culture and reverence for its beauty, but also with the
gaze of an outsider.
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| Soul Steps I.08 -- Luigi Fieni |
Mustang is not an easy place to get to know, particularly
for those of us outside the region. Fieni shares with us a view that very few get to see. These images of the mountains around Damodar
Kunda, a place of spiritual pilgrimage for Buddhist and Hindus, show an impressively
stunning landscape, though at times Fieni's images may seem abstract. Filling
the frame completely, without the grounding sight of horizon or sky, the
velvety amber-colored slopes and blue-grey shadowed valleys are difficult to
perceive in scale. They seem at once impossibly massive, but curiously small,
the stuff of dreams. It is no surprise that this unique landscape in the rain
shadow of the Himalayas is a sacred place. Fieni, too, is a pilgrim. The
inspiration he draws from the landscape is visible in his images, and he shares
his experience in the poem that opens his statement. The first few lines read:
The journey my destination, the nature my sanctuary.
Kneeling to the shrine my invocation fades as the last word of a prayer lasted for the whole pilgrimage.
The body weakens as my soul gets stronger.
The sound of my steps echoes in my soul as the path crosses with my prayers...
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| Soul Steps I.12 -- Luigi Fieni |
For more information on Luigi Fieni's photographs, please contact Anne Kelly at photo-eye Gallery by email or by calling the gallery at (505) 988-5152 x202