Aerosol

Aerosol destabilizes the viewer's perception through its title, serving as a conceptual detonator that connects the mundane aspects of aerosol products with catastrophic implications like environmental degradation. The artwork blurs the lines between photograph, diagram, and specimen, evoking a clinical yet active atmosphere, capturing ephemeral moments like a suspended cloud or exhaled breath. Macri’s exploration of the body as material extends into the immaterial, prompting a reflection on how aerosol interacts with skin, lungs, and memory. The title creates a tension, opening interpretations of the work that resist a singular narrative. ArtMuseXpress highlights Macri's ability to navigate language and visual aesthetics, making viewers reconsider everyday dispersive technologies. Aerosol doesn’t simply present beauty but also evokes discomfort, paralleling current anxieties about air as a politically charged medium. The title transforms the image, shifting its meaning from pure aesthetics to ethical implications. Ultimately, Aerosol encapsulates Macri's interests in the boundary between body and environment, language volatility, and contamination, depicting a condition of interacting with unseen fields and atmospheres. Its simplicity belies the complexity and rigour of Macri's conceptual artistry.

Aerosol is featured in the article Adamo Macri: Pushing Language Through the Lens by ArtMuseXpress as well as in the Art Muse Express book.

"Another portrait, but this one feels more diffuse—by design. “Aerosol” carries multiple associations. It’s a technical term for a substance released into the air. It’s cosmetic. It’s environmental. And in street culture, it means spray paint—graffiti. That tension between visibility and invisibility runs right through the piece."
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"The hats in Macri’s art take many shapes, although the toque is a favourite, and I dare say because it’s more malleable than a fedora or top hat. All the head coverings, which include cowls, hoodies, crowns, scarves and, of course, the toque, become inextricable from the total effect and meaning of the image: change the head covering in Aerosol from hijab to a cloche and the portrait’s profundity and purpose is altered, its specific cultural and political context even undermined."

“Exquisite and provocative. I come back to this beautifully arranged and coloured portrait: quite gripping, loaded with implications, not only because of the contradictory metaphors, and the daring title, but also because, within a Quebec context, of "La Loi sur la laïcité de l'État."”
~ Kenneth Radu (Canadian writer)

“Apparel in this portrait is charged with meaning and implications. Who, after all, is wearing cerements? In its commingling of religious images, Macri’s Aerosol raises provocative questions, but refuses to answer them, for he’s an artist first and foremost, and not a propagandist in the common meaning of the word..”
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“The metaphors continue to expand and the interest follows. Enchanting.”
~ John Felice Ceprano (Ottawa rock sculptor, painter)
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"The Middle East conflict personified."
~ Michael K Waterman (Multi-media artist, New York, Savannah Georgia)
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"Wow, so elaborate, such artistry."
~ Judith Desrosiers Malaney (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Researcher, Wallasey UK)


Aerosol, 2024
Photography: Chromogenic C-print
81 x 86 cm