Luca Gilli

Since the dawn of time, food and the way it is prepared harbours a significant component of every community’s identity. This is particularly true of our community, which feels a special attachment to its cuisine.
Food and the culinary art are a means of seduction, of showing affection, of taking care of one's loved ones, and of sublimating anxiety and neuroses.
All kinds of things happen as people sit around the table: anniversaries and successes are celebrated and disappointments exorcised;  memories are recalled, plans are hatched, as well as betrayals and even revolutions.
On the whole, many human events are marked, more or less wittingly, by nourishment and the table, well beyond physiological needs. Food is an “other” matter, it is a physical and psychological humus forged in local history and capable of touching the communion of being as few other things can. Its nature is manifold, but its deep identity, its most intimate essence resides, unchanged, in its respect for time and, paradoxically, for life.
It is a poetic language, capable of setting off virtuous emotional synapses in which a “signifier” transcends beyond a single “meaning”. But for this to happen, for single notes to become a melody for the senses and the mind, the alchemical substrata have to react; the rite of preparation has to be performed with devotion and according to ancient dictates.
The colours of the ingredients, the mix of matter and light, and shots sensitive to the soul of the details in these images tell a story, intimately and in a soft voice, of the procedures and the potions whereby these spells come to life and renew themselves through time.
 

Luca Gilli lives in Cavriago (Reggio Emilia) and has been working as a photographer for several years. His works have been exhibited in solo and group exhibits in Italy and abroad, particularly in Arles and Lyon, and a number of his photo reports have been published on prestigious magazines. In recent years he has published several personal photography works and some representative selections of his works are featured in the catalogues of various group exhibits.