Paolo Ventura - Italian Artist

Italian photographer Paolo Ventura (born in Milan, 1968) is known for constructing and photographing elaborate dioramas to tell cinematic visual stories. He controls the entire artistic process... constructing and painting small-scale scenes, photographing the sets, and hand painting the photographs.

Ventura was raised by a celebrated Italian children's book illustrator, and throughout his youth, his father would delight him and his brother with fanciful sketches and bed-time stories. That sense of childlike wonder pervades all of his work, which often features images of street performers, theaters, and cinemas. But Ventura's work is also imbued with a sense of disquiet that is all the more jarring for the superficially playful whimsical nature of his subjects, perhaps reflecting his unease about our increasingly changing technological world. He often uses himself as an actor, photographing himself, and then digitally manipulating himself into his constructed backgrounds. He also incorporates live actors that include members of his family, casting his son, wife, and twin brother as participants in his narratives. His narratives are tinged with nostalgia for a bygone era, and they evoke simpler moments from Italy's past—the faded-pink stucco buildings, the cobblestone streets—but with a dark twist. Pre- or post-war, they are populated by shadowy, suspicious figures in hats and trench coats.

Ventura graduated from the Academia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan in 1991. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at Forma International Center for Photography, Milan, Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, and Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, Paris, and in 2012, he was selected by curator Vittorio Sgarbi to create a series of works for the Italian national pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale. His works have been acquired by prominent public collections including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and the Martin Margulies Collection in Miami, Florida. Four monographs of his work have been published: War Souvenir (Contrasto, 2006), Winter Stories (Aperture and Contrasto, 2009), The Automaton (Peliti Asociati, 2011) and Lo Zuavo Scomparso (Punctum Press, 2012).