One fascinating aspect of the talent of those who can narrate fear and the absurd is the ability to construct stories that take us from a zone of tranquility to another where we are in danger, even while we are simply in front of a book or the television. Swiss photographer Cristina Rizzi Guelfi has always been a lover of the great cinematic masters of suspense, first Alfred Hitchcock and then Stanley Kubrick, who managed to associate the absurd with everyday and familiar dimensions better than anyone else who has tried to do so in cinema. After her studies in science and law, Cristina Rizzi Guelfi began to approach photography, with the intention of representing through images what she wrote, to try to bring written stories into a more visible and engaging dimension like that of photography. Photography, thanks to its immediacy, quickly became an indispensable tool, and Cristina started to replace words, approaching as a technique the work of those cinematic masters who helped shape her taste and narrative ability.
Cristina Rizzi Guelfi, even in her choice of how to represent subjects, clearly touches on the cinematic language. The framing cuts, the depth of field in certain shots, and the use of color and contrasts make the images rich and exquisite, like a slice of glazed cake. Another central element of the photographer’s work is the focus on the identity of the subjects, often hidden or covered with compositional tricks, creating a strange grotesque sense of mystery.
