Photographer sees ghosts, spirits in his workDate: 5/3/2022 NORTHAMPTON – Photographer Mark Guglielmo isn’t satisfied taking just one picture of a scene – he takes thousands and said that’s the only way to capture what’s really going on.
The 61-year-old artist traveled to Sicily, the land of his ancestors, to explore and imagine what their life must have been like.
Standing inside the roofless rubble of what was once a family’s home, Guglielmo began taking thousands of pictures of it because one wouldn’t be enough.
“Cameras have one eyeball. If you look at something with one eye, you have one reference point so you lose depth, detail and the ability to see something moving in space,” said Guglielmo.
Instead of taking a single picture, Guglielmo shoots thousands of the same scene. They are wide shots and close-ups from hundreds of angles, capturing minute details that would be lost in a single image.
Once inside his studio, Guglielmo lays out the pictures, putting them together like a jigsaw puzzle. It is a mosaic that has more depth and meaning than the original scene.
“I got tired of trying to sum up what I’m seeing and feeling with just one photograph,” he said.
“I can go wherever I want with these images. I’m not trying to recreate what I saw. I’m trying to recreate a vision that has feeling, emotion and a spirit. I’m trying to breathe life into a photograph,” he continued.
Guglielmo has taken mosaic photography a step further. If he imagines something belongs in the picture that wasn’t in the original scene, he paints it in. Back to the stone rubble home in Sicily – Guglielmo envisions the people who could have lived there. Using black acrylic paint, he adds them to the mosaic, painting over existing photographs.
“I added three women spinning wool inside the home. I also painted in a fisherman sitting with his basket of fish. I could imagine him living in this house,” said Guglielmo.
Guglielmo draws his inspiration from photographs of southern Italians taken as far back as 1890. Many of his ancestors left Italy for a life in America. Some returned, others did not. Using his skills as an artist, he returns people to their homeland by painting them into the mosaic.
“I superimpose their portraits onto these photo collages in ways that would make you feel like they’re ghosts, almost like they’re spirits. It’s almost like bringing them home,” he said.
Guglielmo took a three-week pilgrimage to Sicily in 2019, coming back with enough photos to create seven mosaics – the largest 8 feet tall by 7 feet wide. By capturing a cross-section of life in Sicily, Guglielmo is going back to his roots, understanding where and how his family lived.
“It’s important to know where I came from. To know where my people are from. So much of our history has been lost and so much of our story is invisible. That is a big mystery. How can I feel comfortable if I don’t know where I came from,” asked Guglielmo.
Guglielmo is driven to know how his ancestor lived, worked and raised their families. He doesn’t have all the answers, but he uses his imagination to create mosaics that may tell the story.
“It’s almost like you can feel the presence of the ancestors. There’s such a strong feeling of the people who came before us,” said Guglielmo.
It may take a thousand images to give meaning to a mosaic, but it is the single shot that gives it clarity.
“My challenge over these last 35 years is how can I take photography and make something that looks as beautiful or more beautiful than what I’m seeing with my eyes,” said Guglielmo.
Guglielmo’s series of seven large-scale photocollages of Sicily appears at the Vermont Center for Photography, 10 Green St., in Brattleboro, VT. It runs from May 6 to June 26. The gallery is closed Monday and Tuesday but is open Wednesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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