Martina Della Valle's Wabi-Sabi Exhibition at Dryphoto Prato

Martina Della Valle (born 1981, Florence) presents 'Wabi-Sabi' at Dryphoto in Prato, curated by Chiara Ruberti and Luca Carradori, running until November 15, 2016. The exhibition explores the Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi—the beauty of imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness—inspired by a trip to Japan where Della Valle discovered a collection of old, undated negatives depicting ikebana floral still-lifes. She reappropriates these materials—various format shots, glass plates, and handwritten parchment containers—by producing real-scale contact prints that preserve scratches and dust as marks of time. Alongside these, she creates black-and-white diptychs and rayograms of natural elements, emphasizing imperfections and asymmetries, and large-format color prints that trace human intervention in natural environments, highlighting the futile attempt to control nature. The exhibition also features an ikebana composition, a 'sculpture' representing the local landscape, made from spontaneous plant materials collected in Prato's marginal green areas by participants of a workshop led by Della Valle and conducted by artist and teacher Rie Ono. The workshop aimed to connect the artist's foundational concept with Prato's urban territory and the gallery's surroundings, activating a site-specific reflection. The process becomes an ongoing investigation driven by uncontrollable actions that generate imperfection and uniqueness, making each narrative unexpected.