Personal portfolio of Maria Cristina Madera

Maria Cristina Madera was born in Rome 50 years ago. Since she was a child she has shown a marked interest in painting and the figurative arts in general. The years pass and Maria Cristina cultivates her love for art through study and her instinct that will lead her to paint for a few years. For her on her fifteenth birthday she receives her first reflex as a gift and her interest in photography turns into a passion thanks to an uncle who reveals all the secrets of the camera to her. An important stimulus for her artistic growth will be given to her by her teacher, the painter Francesco Vaglica, with whom she will study the rules of drawing and painting techniques for three years. It is precisely in this period that his pictorial production becomes more intense. The meeting with the photographer Riccardo Guglielmin in 1997 will be decisive for the rediscovery of a passion that had remained dormant for some years. This is how photography will become a constant in Maria Cristina's life, fueled by a strong sensitivity and a great interest in portraiture. His photographic journey develops through images stolen from everyday life, discreet but at the same time inquisitive shots, impromptu representations of human emotions. It is precisely the love for expressive immediacy that will characterize his future production up to lead it, in 2002, in Sydney Australia. Here she takes part in the "Gay Games" as the official photographer of the Italian swimming team. Her overseas shots reveal a great intuition to make an instant eternal by immobilizing movement. It is precisely the passion for the human being and the expressive immediacy that lead her to often deal with swimming in the following years. From participation in official tournaments In recent years, she has moved to rugby, a sport of which she is a great fan of swimming, arriving at the last "Six Nations" tournament, up to approaching Gyrokinesis, a discipline that combines dance, yoga and Tai Chi. In addition, the stage photographs, taken in theater and cinema, they reveal the great fascination that portraits have always exerted on her. In her production, in fact, portraiture is a constant that never abandons her. For some time now, part of her work has included the photographic documentation of surgical interventions on craniofacial malformations. This allows her to combine her greatest passions, that for medicine and surgery in particular, and photography as a documentation tool. A dream that she was able to realize thanks to the collaboration with Prof. Domenico Scopelliti, Scientific Vice President of the Operation Smile Italia Onlus Foundation. Holistic and systemic counselor, graduated from the Cortivo Institute of Padua and graduated as a Facilitator in Family Constellations at the school of Cristina Piazza. She decided to bring the work she has been doing for over twenty years as a photographer within the helping relationship. This is because, learning to see things from a more balanced perspective it allows us to put the pieces of the puzzle together, and recognize the perfection of the drawing. In some cases, photography could be a useful means of helping to reach a new vision that makes us aware of how there can be a different perspective of the difficulty and perhaps also of the resources that one has that can be used to face the discomfort one is experiencing. He has 7 personal exhibitions to his credit and participation in various group exhibitions.For his works he prefers white and black to leave room for the chromatic imagination, subjective for each one, and to induce the observer to a totally personal use of the image. She herself says: "Photography means writing with light and that's why I'm in love with black and white, because it gives me a freedom to play with lights and shadows that I don't find in color".