A selection of seventeen images from Andrea Calabresi's new project: The Upper Half.

Andrea Calabresi has always worked on long term projects in which the analogue photo technique is carefully used to empower the expressiveness of the images. In his last project, The Upper Half, the artist pays homage to the light sources mankind has always seen, the Sun and the Moon; moon which is the subject of this exhibition.

In his big night skies, where the Moon softly lightens the spectacular randomness of the atmospheric events, Andrea Calabresi seeks the fusion between the purity of a juvenile vision and the complexity of the adult one. The Moon stands there, right in the centre of the frame, like a child attempting to draw it will put it, free from any concern about aesthetics or composition.

At the same time The Upper Half is an exploration of the limits of the visibility: the most powerful light source known and his pale reflection projected on the earth by its satellite. Sun and Moon are almost infeasible images.

The author uses a very complex technique, but he hides it to be able to mimic the simple naturalness of the human vision. In his Moons Calabresi pursues a perceptive realism and rejects any pictorial or spectacular effects.

The images shown are analogue silver gelatin prints made by the author on fibre base paper following archival standards, seven of mural size (50x50'' - 125x125 cm) and ten of medium size (19x19'' - 47x47 cm).

Andrea Calabresi was born in Rome in 1967. He began taking pictures and printing when he was a boy. Initially self-taught, he later studied with James Megargee and Arno Rafael Minkkinen. Professional photographer from 1990 to 1998, he worked in many fields, but mainly in architecture photography. In 1996, he opened in Rome a fine art black & white printing lab, this allowed him to gradually quit the professional photography activity. Since then, he devoted himself to the study of the technique and the development of the Perceptive Method, to art projects, intense theoretical and historical studies and to the teaching activity. He is visiting professor at the Syracuse University and teaches at Corsi Foto Analogica and at the Toscana Photographic Workshops. His personal works consists of long-term projects, such as the cityscapes of Questions About the Meaning of Space (1995-2002) and Close Landscapes (2001-2008).

Curated by Daina Maja Titonel

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