A delicate, almost transparent and imperceptible veil floats before our eyes and filters reality, which becomes subjective and never absolute. The philosopher Schopenhauer called it “the veil of Maya,” that impediment that prohibits man from experiencing reality, that deludes us into thinking we know Truth. Photographer Diego Dominici places it between the viewer and his subjects, transforming it into the actual protagonist of the Atman and Red Clouds series. The figures – men and women – are trapped in the veil, struggling with it trying to escape, clinging tightly to it, trying to penetrate it; in other cases, instead, they welcome it, lying down and conforming to its persuading softness. The viewer is only allowed to catch a glimpse of the shapes of their naked bodies and their bones imprinted on the surface, in a dance of light and shadow that convey sensuality and loneliness at the same time.




Diego Dominici attempts to break the two-dimensionality of photography, creating two planes of depth: the one dictated by the fabric and its ripples and the one in which the subject is placed. The viewer’s eye is led to move continuously over the surface, trying to overcome it and thus reach the subject and its forms therefore, in other words, the Truth.
The analogy with human psychology is stated by the photographer who wants to “rip apart two-dimensionality to investigate the tangles of human interiority.” As in his shots, human beings can choose to be lulled by the veil of illusion, be caressed by a fictitious reality and stand firm on their point of view, or they can choose to break it, thus reaching the other side and look at reality from another perspective. The fabric, or rather the veil, becomes the emblem of relational barriers, those obstacles that come between us and others, which prevent us from understanding the motives of others and create unbridgeable distances. At the same time, the veil becomes part of us, a kind of wrapping that envelops and shapes us, preventing us from going beyond it. But, as Schopenhauer said, the veil of Maya must be torn down, ripped open like a Fountain’s canvas, human must shed the envelope like a snake changing its skin, in order to open up to the other. After all, what is love if not “the cancellation of the ego, the collapse of all conscious discrimination and the renunciation of all methodical choice?” said Salvador Dali in My Secret Life. Diego Dominici’s works thus invite deep intimate reflection but, thanks to his carefully curated aesthetics, they can also simply satisfy the eye and appear as sensual works, in which the veil becomes a prelude to intimate pleasure.


