El Mago, and Náufragos inminentes Diptych

El Mago, and Náufragos inminentes Diptych, 2020, by Ana Seggiaro
From the series Durero
Embroidery on printed cloth
Overall size:
Frame size: 12.5 in H x 21 in. W
Image size: 11.8 H x 19.6 in W
Individual size:
Frame size: 12.5 in H x 10.5 in. W
Image size: 11.8 H x 9.8 in W

Ana Seggiaro's training as an engraver awakens her fascination for the works of Durero and Piranesi. This leads her both to recover the language of engraving itself through other media and to appropriate and dialogue with the works of these artists. This conversation, however, does not start from a solemn, pristine, or untouchable place, but from the recognition of her virtues, thus allowing her to operate, rebuild, eliminate, and retouch fragments to compose her own work. Starting from pre-existing works of hers, Seggiaro builds a kind of mimicry of the original pieces in an exercise of visual reconstruction that she uses as a structure for her production. But the works are just that, states altered by her gaze that resemble, without repeating, the original piece.
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Tending relations between geographically distant cultures and, at the same time, stressing the temporal gap that separates them, is the meaning of Ana Seggiaro's work, based on the engravings of Alberto Dürer, Piranesi, and Albinus.
For the artist, European art is the paradigm that she has built, from that training she has resignified her works, submitting them to her consideration and leaving an embroidered mark that marks a different path from the one originally created.
In the process of creation, she takes the images that interest her, investigates their history, and answers questions such as what the artist wanted to say or if she simply made it by chance. The next thing is to photograph it and modify it digitally, either by adding color or removing details to create a collage. Once the final image has been decided, a print is made on fine art canvas to begin the hand embroidery process. In the last year, in addition to embroidering, she has decided to paint over the image.

Ana Seggiaro was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Initially pictorial in nature, in its different stages, her work was exploring and incorporated new materials and media that complemented the oil and engraving that are the basis of its origin. She graduated in drawing and engraving from the Prilidiano Pueyrredón National School of Fine Arts in 1988.