Photographer Marco Simonelli
I was born in 1956 and have been fascinated by the world of photography since I was a boy. Despite limited means and the difficulty of understanding how to use film, like every other adept at this discipline, I began by discovering the world around me by photographing what caught my imagination. Soon, however, I realized that forms, light, and matter are merely elements to contemplate other, less obvious aspects of a complex and chaotic reality. Thus, I began a journey of study and experimentation that continues today with the same passion and undiminished enthusiasm. This enthusiasm and attention I also poured into commercial photography for a certain period, from 2014 to 2024, providing services to individuals and businesses.
My photographic journey, parallel to other professional pursuits, has therefore been a constantly evolving process and the fruit of an analytical approach to the human condition. It is a journey that has ultimately allowed me to develop a critical and open attitude toward the various forms of photographic expression and their conceptual fusion. As an enthusiast, I have participated in various photography exhibitions and, at the same time, organized national photography competitions for a police force in which I served.
Only recently have I felt the need to share my photographic work on the art market. Conceiving photography as a state of art presupposes a profound understanding of emotions, so much so that while previously, as a simple photographer, I limited myself to seeing and recording, later, as an artist, I began to delve into the deeper, more philosophical aspects of existence. Thus, I began to delve into specific conceptual themes. I believe that artists, in any field, have always been considered the uncomfortable voices of our consciences.
Technically, the school of the great masters of painting, beginning with the linear painting of the fourteenth century, the experimental photography of the early twentieth century, and the artistic avant-garde, are still a source of great inspiration today.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
The Photography of Chaos
I create images that alter the perception of reality, considering the intimate and conceptual nature of existence. Each work represents the union between a material reality and its metaphysical representation. Just as matter and life arose from the primordial chaos of creation, so my photography originates from the chaotic elements of the inner universe. I love to dare and explore contexts where the laws of time and space lose their value and consistency and new concepts take shape. Colors, lines, and objects are selected and used to conceive new realities, or rather, new thoughts. The resulting photographic works transcend the limitations of photography of reality and become concepts, dimensions where I can finally conceive, combine, and hypothesize. With the necessary technique, the unique and unrepeatable creative process is nourished by the wisdom of the past, daily life, human experiences, the emotion of the moment, study, experimentation, and imaginary visions. With this work of synthesis, I convey new messages and new insights for meditation. Chromatic experimentation and the corruption of styles thus become fundamental because art, like life, is born from Chaos.
I had to work hard on myself to conceive of photographed reality as a mutable and malleable element. It wasn't easy to shift some of photography's paradigms, as photography itself is considered the undisputed vector of our reality. As an artist, I instead consider photography a melting pot where every thought, technique, and tool merges to give life to new concepts. In this context, it's natural to place my works within the context of conceptual, surrealist, and futurist photography, in a sort of temporal continuum between the various styles. These are well-known artistic fields, open to multiple interpretations and sensibilities, and where the unconscious prevails over reality. The concepts expressed through the images produced, free from any constraint, range across the interior universe and nourish that Chaos understood as openness and the need for a healthy, liberating contamination. Chaos photography is an imaginary universe, located in that middle ground between the material and metaphysical dimensions of existence.