Ralph Maratta
The Fortress Walls Whispered Back
A battle for souls and the molecules of more
Across the fields, armies of skeletons slayed
Beneath the surface, wisdom convenes
Clouds sauntered to mingle with the peaks, gossiping about what each had seen
Love is in the trenches of the day- to-day
Maybe language can’t get it right
She lifted her veil
The fire lit the sky as the enemies’ dream woke
The fortress walls whispered back
The manufacturing of wealth
The wear and tear of time, sunlight and salt air
Those hedging for fixed postions among the wandering stars
In the artist’s words:
Ralph Maratta, who works under the name 2Worlds, lives and works in Tacoma, Washington. A recent transplant from the New York City area, he credits a recent creative surge to the lifestyle change he expresses as “energizing.”
“I’m in a groove. Living in a vastly different, rugged, and raw landscape, being an outsider, unknown but for a handful of colleagues and friends, and feeling like a fish out of water, is a jolt to the core. For now, I’m exploiting the feeling and converting it to photographs.”
Maratta works in film and digital capture. Reared in the traditional darkroom, a place he says he transforms, he is skilled in black and white printmaking. “In the darkroom, I become laser-focused, slower, methodical, retentive, over-demanding, and perfectionist – all of the things I’m not in life!” Yet, if asked if he thinks film is the superior medium, he quickly replies, “I don’t get into that stuff, it would be like comparing watercolor to oil or something. Each medium is different with a different set of strengths and weaknesses. It all depends on what you want to convey. At first, the darkroom influenced my digital printing, but now my digital processes affect how I approach the darkroom.”
He says music influences his photography most, citing that “it’s all there; tonal scale, contrast, brightness, darkness, rhythm, and melody.” The nature of aesthetics or aesthetic experience intrigues him most as he thinks art can trigger the subconscious and also tap something universal, like a collective unconscious. “I can work in different subject matters, styles, and photographic mediums, but running through all my imagery are ideas on connectivity, empty space, differing realities in a given moment, and the merging disciplines of modern science and spirituality.
When asked about what photography and the creative process means to him, he says, “For me, it’s less about the need to create, like it is for many. Photography, for me, is a measurement of how I’m improving or not. So, it’s my focus, my life’s work, and a bit of duty, albeit a labor of love.”
Maratta has been featured in several one-person shows and published in a variety of online publications. More of his work can be seen here:
https://www.2worldsphoto.com/Artist.asp?ArtistID=43503&Akey=7FHPS2FP&ajx=1#!pf203811_im0
I very much like these works by 2Worlds, AKA Ralph Maratta. The textures and colors are wonderful, as are the titles, which enlarge the scope of the images and, more importantly, drive the images to a home place in body, mind and spirit. I love this connection between language and visual art. One title, “Maybe language can’t get it right,” plays on a simple truth humans most often ignore, which is that language IS abstraction. That is to say the word “dog” is not the animal labeled by the word “dog.” Of course, images are abstraction as well. Here in 2Worlds’ work we see the combination of language and image in a simple straightforward way working to suggest deeper consideration, though neither image nor title are straightforward in and of themselves.
Thank you Abstract Magazine and 2Worlds for this post, a pleasure to consider.