A man and a gentleman’s thought
by Giovanni Gastel
Roger Corona’s universe is made of rigor and elegance; it is generated by an introverted and refined soul, tormented by the creative insecurity that is the hallmark of a true, profound artist.
I have known Roger since the 1980s, when he abandoned everything and everybody, followed his love for photography and came to bubbly Milan, where a “renaissance of style” was underway, to use a description by the philosopher Francesco Alberoni.
He arrived at my studio at Donna Magazine with two suitcases full of dreams and pluck, and my fondness of him began – and never stopped. Bravely and with a sense of humor (always a sign of intelligence), he went through a tough but necessary period of apprenticeship.
I witnessed his photography becoming surer and more personal by the day.
Fashion, still lifes, beauty, erotic nudes and portraits were borne of this extraordinary creative genesis that was somehow always marked by a successful attempt to build and grow. As necessary for every creative person, his vision of the world became increasingly individualistic and diverse. With great and deep affection, I followed his search for himself and his uniqueness as his quest gradually became more precise and engrossing.
And now, before my admiring eyes, here he is opening a portfolio to show me this magical series of male and female nudes. In the stark yet warm cleanliness of these studies of the body (and soul, I might add), I see with extreme joy the reaching of a pureness in message and form that make me truly happy and proud of the creative and human path that “my” Roger has walked.
The lines in his bodies are really the lines of his thought as a man and gentleman. They contain sensuality and at the same time respect for the human being.
Observe these images as you would an interior biography of him as an author; try to “recreate” with him (and thanks to him) the travels of your inner memories.
Giovanni Gastel, Milan 2017
Geometric Pattern – Perfection of Form
Essay by Maurizio Rebuzzini
With praiseworthy far-sightedness, the respected photography critic Giuliana Scimé writes in her foreword to Roger Corona’s 1996 monograph, aptly titled Dettagli (“details”), “The human body is the sum of form, meaning that each and every form attributable to a geometric pattern is contained in the body.” Today, 20 years later, for a subsequent ordering of this attentive photographer’s work, it is inevitable that we once again take up this original attribution that has not lost any of its valuable insight to the passing of time.
The current work Pattern Geometrico materializes as an authorial certification of the photographic line illustrating the expressive touch and visual capacity of Roger Corona, who has elevated the representation of the human body to his stylistic hallmark.
Again, the link with the original description of Dettagli is reaffirmed and confirmed in a cadence that the body rarely, perhaps never, performs in its completeness. Rather it examines a meticulous series of compositional finesse, forming the measured formal step of a pars pro toto.
French by birth and Florentine by personal background, Corona has cultivated his own ideal perfection of form, that belongs to a cultural heritage rooted in a centuries-old tradition beginning in the Renaissance. (And here we could see the legacy of his maturation in Florence.)
Roger Corona perceives and represents his subjects as if they were sculptures. His work depends on how the forms are constructed in space.
Through his pictures, he captures the particular form of perfection that he recognizes in the work of Renaissance masters.
Indeed, his photography is composed under the painstaking search for balance, correctness and clarity contained in form. He strives for perfection through the rigorous geometry of volumes defined by lines and sculpted by light.
One subject or another; it makes no difference. Corona composes in a geometrical key, alternately underlining whites, blacks or greys that are framed after long meditation, pondered at length. The same goes for his exploration of color, never gaudy, never redundant, but always brought back to chromatic and tonal lightness – black and white. Consecutively seen, the subjects of Pattern Geometrico are cadenced in consequential sections placed one after the other, some before others. All together in a communion of intentions, the sections take on and resolve the different aspects of a single large theme: form approached as an independent value that confers a lucid position to Corona’s photographic space.
Milan, January 2017