Pasquale Proia - photography - Scent of a Venus

As often happens when I’m working on a new photograph, I pause at a point that feels final — and sometimes it is — but in most cases, the image remains suspended, unresolved, sometimes for a long time, even years. Then something happens, though I’m never quite sure what: perhaps just leafing through my archive, I suddenly decide to combine certain images, even photographs I believed to be already complete.

That’s exactly what happened with Tracce della Venere Gialla (July 2025), a piece I was developing, inspired by the Venus of Willendorf — the famous Palaeolithic figurine — and which I had more or less finished, to the point that I considered publishing it as the featured image in the Gallery on my website. It’s something I do periodically, with no fixed schedule: the lead image on that page changes from time to time, then moves into the online archive.

I wasn’t entirely convinced about publishing it; I had simply postponed. Then, while browsing through my work-in-progress folder, Scent of a Woman appeared on the screen — a 2023 piece, located on the same page but in a different row from the Venere Gialla. I placed them side by side and thought they might work together. I had actually been looking for some “curves” for this Venus of mine, but the project took a different direction and, in truth, remains open: new variations are emerging for both images, and perhaps something else entirely.

Another distinctive element is that both works are part of an ongoing exploration of wood textures and grain — a thread I began several years ago and, like many others, continue to revisit with new shots and reinterpretations.
I’m pleased that this not-too-deliberate relationship between two images of women could give rise to a thread I find genuinely intriguing.

When I’m asked to describe my working process, I’m never reluctant — and yet I sometimes struggle to find the right words to explain my paths, my not-so-linear sense of direction.

I believe the dialectical aspect of my work shouldn’t dominate — but neither should it be denied.

I don’t quite agree, as some confidently claim, that artworks should never be explained.
Not all works, at least not for me.
After all, in this case we’re talking about a rather straightforward process, built around an image I defined as a Venus — not something graphically abstract or purely evocative.

It’s a beautiful thing — and often enriching — to choose to talk with someone about your own work. When a sense of connection is sparked, a genuine feeling, it may even happen that — in conversation — you notice details you had never seen before.
It’s a different way of looking. Of looking again — and perhaps, of discovering yourself.