Statement and Bio
I was born in Mantua, a small town in the North of Italy where I still live and work, in the first months of 1973. I approached visual arts at the beginning of the 90s, as a self-taught artist: my university background relates to economics and social studies. My first artistic experiences involved digital works with images manipulation and short films production. In 1999 I cooperated with DollyDesign, the first Italian web community dedicated to web design. In that period I also took part into the CWR - Creativo Web & Tv Festival, at the Triennale in Milan, where I reached the finals in the “Flash Animations” section and received the juries special mention at the 2000 Bardi Award with my project called “Pioggia Acida”. In 2003 I joined the designers and artists collective group called Design(Radar and thanks to a specially modified image I reached the “Lost Paradise” contest finals organized by Diesel: this was the end of my digital artistic period. After that I attended a course in photography literacy and began to take photo only with an analog reflex. Meanwhile I contributed to the foundation of the Group of Photography La Ghiacciaia and of the Pommefritz collective, with the aim of meeting other artists and sharing my knowledge. Since 2005 I have been appearing in the photographers list of the German Destructed.info collective, which in 2007 issued its own anthology, with two pages dedicated to my photos.
I am a photographer who combines tradition with innovation: for my works I prefer the cross processing technique, which I achieve by using a traditional camera. The cross processing is achieved by processing a slide film as if it was a regular film for colour photos, but it works even by reversing the process. Photography is an absolute passion for me. What fascinates me is the urban decay; I draw inspiration from old and abandoned homes, from block of flats, barrack-like buildings, popular areas and rooms which are in disuse. I like to create nice photos with a bit of decadentism and surrealism, sometimes even with a touch of black humour. I mostly work in my neighbourhood, or in the immediate vicinities, searching for odd perspectives, different angles and colours. I usually overexpose my photos and at the end they are the results of all the elements I have mentioned. But I also try to evolve and improve my technique, with a special care for colour. Indeed my use of colour aims at giving a particular stress to the psychological state of things.
In 2004 I began my expositive activity. Some of the most important expositions of this period include my admission to the biennals in Arad (Romania), Hong Kong, Sofia and Cuenca (Ecuador), as well as the participation to the Photography Festival in Rome, to the Fonlad 06 to the Asiatic Photography Festival in Dhaka (Bangladesh) and to the artistic event RintracciArti (Mantua). This last organization has used some of my photos for its national advertising campaign. In 2007 two expositions dedicated to my works have taken place: one at the Bertolt Brecht gallery in Milan and the other in Haarlem (Holland), in the space of the art gallery ArtUnit. Other art galleries and associations have showed interest for my conception of photography, too, such as the Denver Sellars Project Space and the London Photographic Association, by which I was awarded in 2006 with the “Silver Winner” prize. In 2006 I also got a nomination for the international award Color Awards, sponsored by IlFord, Kodak and Vogue, in the category Nature.
2008 has turned out to be a crucial year as well, with our collective’s participation at the Biennale delle Arti dell’unità d’Italia (Biennial of the Arts of the Unity of Italy), which took place in April and May at the monumental complex of Real Sito Belvedere in San Leucio (Caserta), a place which the enlightened sovereigns of the Borbone dynasty were able to erect as Ideal Utopian City. That year the collective duo was also included in the collective exhibition Ti riciclo in Arte at the Fonderia delle Arti in Rome, which achieved great success and was even covered by some TV news and programs (RaiNews24, SkyNews and Tg3). Among other important events which have occurred during last year are the participation at the exhibition Umano? Ultraumano! Poetica della deformazione (Human? Ultra-human! Deformation Poetics) in Milan (Alzaia Naviglio Grande 38, within the photographer Cecchin’s studio), during the fringe events of the Salone del Mobile, as well as the invitation to the fourth edition of Latin Network for the Visual Arts (LNVA), biennial dedicated to Latin artists and which took place in Connecticut at the Gales Ferry’s Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art. In August the exhibition “Con le scarpe pulite. La vita sulle Ande” (“With clean shoes. Life on the Andes”) - dedicated to the duo collective (i.e. together with Mauro Manuini) - took place at the Giulio Romano’s loggias in Mantua. About this solo exhibition a book was published by the Mantuan publishing house “Il Cartiglio Mantovano”.
In October me and Manuini took part in the opening collective exhibition “18x18” at the Infantellina Contemporary Gallery in Berlin; I was shortlisted for the 4th edition of the Portuguese Fonlad festival and I was also invited to take part into the Madeira Biennial, where I was awarded with the first prize in the section “photography”.
The year 2009 began with some collective exhibitions, among which are worth to be remembered “Good Stuff” at Dask Gallery in Copenhagen, “Living in a Still Life" at Fonderia delle Arti in Rome and "Glamour Art" at Spazio Symposium XXI in Milan. In spring we also had two solo exhibitions, the first one in Poland at Bielsko Biala (Galeria Fotografii B&B), supported by the Institute of Italian Culture and the second one in Cefalù (Italy) at La Galleria. We also took part to the “Roaming Biennial of Tehran” during its leg in Belgrad, to the "Festival delle Passioni" (Passions Festival) in Mantua and to the " Ballarat Biennial ", one of the most important biennials in the southern hemisphere. Year is ending with our successful participation into Box Shock, a network of events related to contemporary art (curated by Ronald Lewis Facchinetti) that took place in October in Milan and - last but not least - with our (by now) usual participation at the Portuguese Fonlad festival.
Recently the magazine of photographic culture Gente di Fotografia has published one of my texts together with some photos taken by the Pommefritz collective, 4 pages in total. The same happened in 2006, when the Digital Life Style monthly interviewed me and published the interview with some of my photos in their issue number 3. Moreover my name appear on the book 28mm, the book, published in 2005 in the United States as tribute to the 28mm Internet website.