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Roberto Pireddu
Roberto Pireddu
Roberto Pireddu

Roberto Pireddu

Country: Italy
Birth: 1984

Artist Statement: "I was born on October 5th, 1984 in Cagliari, and even though I earned a high school diploma in surveying I never felt it was my field, and very soon I understood that calculations and straight lines were going to be too boring for me. The pencil, an instrument of torture if utilized in the surveying world, actually became a loyal partner if employed in the arts. I began to draw at a very young age; my first themes were the characters of my favourite cartoons. Then, as years went by, I perfected my techniques (as an autodidact) and began drawing more challenging themes and subjects, slowly abandoning the pastels to concentrate solely on the black and white. It all became a must: colored pastels did not exist anymore, and if I had a blank sheet of paper, the lead of the pencil was the only instrument. I held my first camera just over a year ago. I have tried to utilize colors: red is marvelous, blue is fantastic and green is magnificent. But these feelings did not last, and I just could not to do it anymore. There was nothing to do because my preference for the monochrome has taken over even this time, and I must to succumb to this force without resisting it. I have lost myself and do not wish for anyone to come find me. In my world of black and white there are only two simple colors, but there is also a myriad of shades of grey that I will not let get away."

 

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Over the past 25 years, Frieke Janssens has acquired a reputation as a photographer of surreal staged tableaux and group portraits, often originating in a specific concept, and almost always stemming from an inexhaustible interest in human diversity. Her series often stand out because of their confrontational nature. Notable series include, among others, Smoking Kids, Your last shot, Diana's, Animalcoholics, and recently Lightness. In the same way that an oil painter builds up a work layer by layer, she too meticulously creates each image, down to the smallest detail. In every picture we can recognise the same artistic touch, the same technical perfection, combined with a playful duality between reality and fiction. At first glance, her images attract the viewer because of their pared-down beauty. Yet once one really starts to look in earnest, one realises that there are always multiple layers of meaning. It seems as if the people portrayed are trying to tell us something. However, they are silent, and consequently have to rely on the viewers to create the story for themselves. Frieke does not adopt any particular position, but aims to convey the feeling that one is not only looking at a photograph, but at a mirror as well. As such, she leaves the viewers free in their interpretation, yet never leaves them indifferent. She sometimes lends her pared-down style to clients with whom she has a good connection, like a cultural centre, or a campaign, or a newspaper or magazine. In recent years, Frieke Janssens has exhibited in New York, Chicago, London, Hull, Bilbao and obviously also in her own country, including in Antwerp and Knokke-Heist. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, Knack, De Morgen, De Tijd and NRC, among others. Her book The Sweetest Taboo won gold at the 2019 Henry Van De Velde awards. In 2022, her third book Lightness was published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition in Foto Knokke-Heist.
Arthur Elgort
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Antonin is a founder of the VII photo agency. As photojournalists go, Antonin Kratochvil has sunk his teeth into his fair share of upheaval and human catastrophes whilst going about his documentation of the time in which he lives. As people go, Kratochvil's own refugee life has been much in the way the same as what he has rendered on film. Kratochvil's unique style of photography is the product of personal experience, intimate conditioning and not privileged voyeurism. Over the years his fluid and unconventional work has been sought by numerous publications stretching across widely differing interests. From shooting Mongolia's street children for the magazine published by the Museum of Natural History to a portrait session with David Bowie for Detour, from covering the war in Iraq for Fortune Magazine to shooting Deborah Harry for a national advertising campaign for the American Civil Liberties Union, Kratochvil's ability to see through and into his subjects and show immutable truth has made his pictures not facsimiles but uncensored visions. And yet, what set his kind apart from the many is his consistency and struggle to carry on. For Kratochvil this fact comes in the form of his numerous awards, grants and honorable mentions dating back to 1975. The latest of these are his two, first place prizes at the 2002 World Press Photo Awards in the categories of general news and nature and the environment. The next is the 2004 grant from Aperture publishing for Kratochvil's study on the fractious relationship between American civil liberties and the newly formed Homeland Security since the World Trade Center bombings. In addition, Kratochvil's fifth book Vanishing was presented in April 2005 and marks another significant milestone for the craft to which he belongs. Vanishing represents a collection of natural and human phenomena that on the verge of extinction. What makes this book so innovative is the twenty years it has taken to produce, making it not only historical from the onset, but a labor of love and a commitment to one man's conscience.
Davide Bertuccio
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United States
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Chuck Close is an American artist known for his monumental photorealist portraits. Close received his B.A. from the University of Washington in 1962 and his M.F.A from Yale University in 1964. Upon graduation, he was chosen for the Fulbright Program grant, which he used to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Upon his return to the U.S., Close worked as an art teacher at the University of Massachusetts. In 1967, he moved to New York and began his work in SoHo. He was given his first solo exhibition in New York later that same year, followed by an exhibition at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. In kindergarten, Close learned that he suffered from prosopagnosia, commonly known as face blindness. He chose portraiture as a way to remember the significant people in his life. With his inability to recognize faces, Close uses a grid system to piece together his portraits. He said, “If you impose a limit to not do something you've done before, it will push you to where you've never gone before." Close suffered from a spinal artery collapse in 1988 that left half of his body paralyzed. Though many thought his artistic career was over, he re-taught himself to paint using a splint. He methodically paints in color or grey scale in low-resolution grid squares across the canvas. Close up his work looks like no more than blocks of color, but the colors combine to create a photorealistic image as you back away. Close is not only influential in the art world, but his early airbrush techniques also inspired the development of the ink jet printer. His portraits of famous artists are his most sought after works, and his work John (1971-1972) sold with Sotheby's for $4.8 million in 2005. Chuck Close has work featured in the permanent collections at the Albright-Knox Gallery in New York, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Georgia, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the MCA Chicago, the LACMA, the MFA Houston, the MFA Boston and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Related Categories: Close-Up, Photorealistic, Hyperrealism, Photographic Source, Post-War American Art, Pixelated, Visual Perception, Drawing, Black-and-white Photography, Work on Paper Source: www.casterlinegoodman.com
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