Drawing inspiration from the ancient Neapolitan figure of the femminiello, a revered presence considered spiritually favourable, TRA pays homage to locals who live outside binary gender expectations.
The word tra, Italian for a state of being between, among and within, speaks in this work to an energetic space where masculine and feminine converge and dissolve, and categories blur into something more elemental. While dual-spirited identities have often been acknowledged in male-assigned bodies, female-born expressions of gender variance have historically been dismissed or disparaged, often carrying cultural and class-based stigma. This body of work includes masculille in an attempt to reclaim that space with dignity.
Following the discovery of an archival photograph of the artist’s nonna, in a scene that is seemingly the wedding of two women, Roman wondered whether there may have been another experience of queerness in the family, deepening the desire to explore local histories.
Journeying through Napoli, where the landscape is caught between time periods, Roman traces connections between people and place. CiroCiretta wears draped clothing modelled in depictions of the Madonna, Leila stoically gazes back at the camera much like the fresco of a man with his horse etched into a stone ruin in Pompeii. These relationships are intuitive, felt, embodied, and ancient, further emphasised by the artist combining medium-format colour portraiture, grainy point-and-shoot, and slow monochrome Super 8 film. Resisting the academic intellectualisation of identity, TRA is a piecing together of both tradition and transformation.
The word tra, Italian for a state of being between, among and within, speaks in this work to an energetic space where masculine and feminine converge and dissolve, and categories blur into something more elemental. While dual-spirited identities have often been acknowledged in male-assigned bodies, female-born expressions of gender variance have historically been dismissed or disparaged, often carrying cultural and class-based stigma. This body of work includes masculille in an attempt to reclaim that space with dignity.
Following the discovery of an archival photograph of the artist’s nonna, in a scene that is seemingly the wedding of two women, Roman wondered whether there may have been another experience of queerness in the family, deepening the desire to explore local histories.
Journeying through Napoli, where the landscape is caught between time periods, Roman traces connections between people and place. CiroCiretta wears draped clothing modelled in depictions of the Madonna, Leila stoically gazes back at the camera much like the fresco of a man with his horse etched into a stone ruin in Pompeii. These relationships are intuitive, felt, embodied, and ancient, further emphasised by the artist combining medium-format colour portraiture, grainy point-and-shoot, and slow monochrome Super 8 film. Resisting the academic intellectualisation of identity, TRA is a piecing together of both tradition and transformation.
