Recognition memory is a series of female portraits, which seem to want to escape from the encounter. Very inspired by the work of Gerhard Richter, the colours—sometimes bright—and the subject’s expression disappear in a questioning and existential haze.

The artist begins with photographs of women selected from magazines or personal archives, which she then cuts, assembles, redraws in graphite and colored pencils and then enhances with pastels. Next, she sprays on acrylic colors and finishes with a final layer, the “glaze”, which shrouds the initial drawing like a Renaissance-style sfumato.

Eliana looks to bring the visitor into a dialogue with her recomposed faces, curious about what types of memory they call to mind, what relationships they evoke, in the visitor’s quest for familiarity. Because it is in this dialogue that she constructs them, the process of creation being a source, for herself, of surprises and discoveries at each stage.