Photographer Marco Simonelli
From an early age, I found in photography a privileged tool through which to observe the world with a certain detachment. My initial path was shaped by the use of analogue film and essential means, fostering a direct relationship with light and the construction of the image. Over the years, photography has become a field of continuous study and experimentation. I gradually came to understand that form, light, and matter are not merely compositional elements, but devices through which to explore less visible aspects of a complex and often contradictory reality. From this awareness emerged a photographic approach grounded in the analysis of the human condition and its multiple layers of meaning.
Alongside my artistic research, between 2014 and 2024 I also worked in the field of professional photography, producing services for individuals and companies. This experience helped refine my gaze and develop a disciplined approach to the project, without interrupting my personal path of visual investigation, which I pursued consistently alongside other professional activities.
Over time, I have participated in several photographic exhibitions and promoted national-level photography competitions within a law enforcement body in which I served. These experiences contributed to the development of a critical perspective open to the diverse expressions of photography and to its conceptual intersections with other artistic languages.
Only in recent years has the need emerged to share my research within the context of the art market. Photography, understood as a form of art, requires for me a deep attention to the emotional dimension and a progressive movement toward a more intimate and philosophical investigation of existence. From this necessity arise the conceptual themes that today form the core of my work.
My visual and cultural formation draws upon the tradition of the great masters of painting, as well as experimental photography of the early twentieth century and the artistic avant-gardes, understood not as formal models but as active references within an ongoing critical dialogue.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
The Photography of Chaos
My research investigates chaos not as disorder, but as origin.
Through photography, I construct images that question the stability of perception and interrogate the very structure of reality. My work arises from the tension between the material world and what remains invisible within it—between form and dissolution, presence and absence.
I'm not interested in representing reality, but in generating visual situations in which the coordinates of time and space are weakened. Color, line, and object are deliberately rearranged to produce images that function as conceptual propositions, rather than documentation. Photography thus becomes a speculative tool: a space in which meaning is not imposed, but activated.
The creative process unfolds in an unstable balance between control and unpredictability. Technique, memory, and emotional experience converge in compositions that arise from fragmentation and move toward a temporary form—just like life and matter.
The research is divided into two interconnected nuclei:
Life explores the human figure as the fragile site of a transforming identity.
Matter physically removes the body, but preserves its trace, exploring matter as a silent extension of the human presence.
Chaos Photography is my attempt to map that threshold where the interior and exterior dimensions meet: a space where identity is continually formed, dissolved, and recomposed.