AFTER FINISHING LAW SCHOOL, I DISCOVERED PHOTOGRAPHY AND A HIDDEN PART OF MYSELF, THROUGH THIS MEDIUM I FOUND A WAY TO RECONNECT WITH A MORE SENSITIVE SIDE

Gabriele Cecconi is a photographer living in the beautiful medieval town of Perugia, in Italy although traveling the world is a part of his work.

Greatest inspirations?

My first point of references were the first photographic masters; Nadar, Kertesz, Steichen and traditional documentary photography. However, during the past two years, I started to work without any boundaries and my practice is constantly changing and evolving. Now I am also inspired by contemporary artists; James Welling, Dan Graham, Pierre Soulages, Richard Serra, Anish Kapoor etc.

Tell us about your creative process

At The beginning my research was focused on classic photography culture, since I started at 27 I wanted to get a good foundation. Straight away i realized the link between every field of art and life. I don't want to be attached to any labels and feel free to move beyond different fields. My last work is more complex from a conceptual point of view and i hope it will be the starting point of another step in my still short career.

How has this year affected your creativity?

This year has been so slow for me, i usually travel a lot but I'm very lucky to live in countryside where I can be in touch with nature. It was a year of thoughts. I've focused my self on research and experimentations. I've started to create ready made sculptures and i've spent my time to accumulate impressions in many forms.

As so many of us have experienced, it was a year of suffering , but every crisis gives the chance to start again with a new energy and motivation. Hopefully there will be an explosion of positivity, and initiatives at the end of our reclusion. It's a turning point for the world and i hope our politicians will do enough to support and push this energy. This crisis has shown the fragility and inequity of our system, i hope something will be done to creates new paradigm in our lives, from a private to a public point of view. It' our responsibility to start each of us on ourselves.

Icons of our time?

Well I don’t really like the idea of a processed of idolization. However, Greta Thunberg can be a good example. She's so young but she seems so angry and this status can be a good synthesis of the common feeling of youth in the world. While our parents grew up with a certain sureness about work and future the youngest generation are born in a very uncertain world. In Italy 30% of youth is unemployed and global warming will change deeply our earth in the next decades.

Do you think the art world needs to change, if so how can it improve?

If you ever saw the Orson Welles movie "F for fake" you could understand what can affect the art world, and that these theories are still more valuable today in the time of social media and globalization. But from a certain point of view i can say that the art world is still inclusive and i want to say to the all young artist and photographers that despite all, the quality of the work is still a cornerstone.

I was coming from nowhere, no photo schools, no friends in the field, nothing, and i'm thankful because despite all this, my work has been recognized and exposed all around the world. So there is still hope. If we now ourself we undertake a serious path towards our deep self, we can still find motivation and hope to find our own identity and spread our work.

Thank you so much Gabriele.