In Persistent, Demetrio Di Grado layers fragments from vintage Italian magazines into a compact yet charged composition, where images, symbols, and textures accumulate through repetition and pressure. Faces partially surface and withdraw, intersected by graphic elements and color fields. The title is embedded within the image, functioning less as a caption than as a structural presence.
The work is created through an analogue collage process. Paper is cut, torn, overlapped, and repositioned by hand, allowing the material to retain its physical memory. Traces of typography, handwriting, and printed patterns coexist with figurative elements.
Persistence here is not portrayed as certainty or strength, but as a condition shaped by accumulation. Meaning builds gradually through layers that refuse erasure. The image holds together despite fracture, sustained by tension, recurrence. What endures is not a single form, but a state of continual negotiation. By reactivating archival imagery within a contemporary assemblage, Di Grado positions the past as an active force rather than a closed record.