Pompeii Commitment

The series of nine photogravures by Cerith Wyn Evans, now part of the contemporary art collection of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, originates from research conducted by the artist within the framework of Pompeii Commitment. Archaeological Matters, which culminated in the exhibition Pompeii Threnody, inaugurated in summer 2025 at the Antiquarium of Boscoreale.
The works are dedicated to some of the most extraordinary remains preserved in the Park’s storerooms and displayed at the Antiquarium: the fossilized remains of ancient cypresses recovered from the Sarno plain. Through these images, Wyn Evans focuses on the geological and memorial dimensions of the Vesuvian landscape, evoked as a site of survival and transformation of natural matter, as well as an archive of temporal and cultural stratifications.
Executed using the photogravure technique – a photographic printing process on a zinc plate, in which the image is transferred onto a photosensitive layer of varnish – the works are based on photographs of the tree remains and present a sequence of visual studies characterized by formal austerity and refined tonal intensity. Through this photomechanical process, the artist condenses multiple temporal layers: the organic growth of the trees, their fossilization following the eruption of Vesuvius, and their current preservation within the museum.
The exhumed roots, documented through photography, undergo a further process of exposure and fixation, becoming for the artist memorials of the activity and persistence of ancient organic matter. In the transition from natural artefact to visual document to artistic object, the photogravures provoke reflection on the relationship between matter and representation, the desire to retain and make visible what is normally hidden, and the potential for these natural fragments to become instruments of knowledge and meditation on the very status of the artwork.
In this way, the series functions as a visual meditation on the capacity of matter to endure catastrophic events and processes of historical sedimentation, presenting the Vesuvian landscape as a palimpsest in which nature, memory, and culture remain intricately intertwined.