The deep and intimate shots by Isabella Sommati

Giulia Guido · 1 year ago · Photography

Take a breath, you will need it to immerse yourself in Isabella Sommati‘s world.

Born in 1966, Isabella was born in Livorno and after her studies, she moved to Milan, where she still lives and works as Art Director. She has always been attracted by the world of photography and after having studied it closely thanks to her profession, a few years ago she decided to dedicate her free time to the art of the camera.

This gave birth to impressive shots and, over time, Isabella has developed a style suitable for her favorite subjects, such as water and women.

A selection of Isabella Sommati’s shots will be exhibited for Ph.ocus -About Photography in the “Please, Take Care” section.

Incurious, we at Collater.al asked her some questions, don’t miss our interview below!

How did the first approach with photography happen?

I am an Art Director with experience in the world of photography. For work, I have edited a lot of photos, from color to digital. It was inevitable that I wanted to go deeper, without of course overlapping the professionals.
The first photographic projects were immature, very intimate, but I don’t deny them, it was a necessary path to be able to consciously photograph the micro-world around me.

Often at the center of your photographs, there is a female figure. What is femininity for you and what aspects of it do you want to tell with your shots?

I consider femininity an identity.

The woman is sensuality, fragile, fickle. She is creative, innovative, combative. I would like you to perceive through my shots this multitude of colours that is our strength, from abyssal black to solar white, a marvellous colour whose subtlest nuances we ourselves discover day by day.

Another recurring element is water. What role does it play in your work and what does it represent?

The sea was the companion of my walks and the guardian of my return from school in winter. I am moved by its immensity, the stability of the horizon, the noise of the tides, which advance and retreat like in a Satie score

While living in Milan I got to know the swimming pools, the summer in the city, a bit bitter water, but still a weekend getaway.
The water has a healing function: it cleanses, soothes or becomes an escape route. In water there are no thoughts but only dreams.

Where do you get the inspiration for your personal projects? Are there photographers and/or artists you follow?

Some projects have been built with a precise idea, such as “Alveare”, a reportage about a women’s football team registered at the CSI championship in Milan. Others looking around me like “Mare Nero”, there are projects that have been enriched over the years by other shots (“Acqua”). Sometimes by chance, watching small summer videos, from which I extrapolate frames that I rework.

Working mainly in black and white, I seek inspiration in the photography of Ackerman or Aue Sobol, in the visual poetry of Botman. Mendieta and Woodman helped me to get to know myself both as a woman and as an artist.

Tell us about a shot to which you are particularly attached.

Every photo is part of me. But I think the shot I’m particularly attached to is “ACQUA # Ogni Giorno Io Rinasco”. This photograph tells of my rebirth after a period of emptiness, of absence. Here is all my poetics: woman and water, dream and reality, weakness and strength to be reborn.

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Photography

The deep and intimate shots by Isabella Sommati

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Collater.al & Brillo. Together in the name of the love of illustration

Giulia Guido · 5 days ago · Art

We need new imagery, created in pencil, pen, black and white or colour, drawn on a sheet of paper or digitally. We also need a place where we can admire and immerse ourselves in these imaginaries. And what if this place were actually two?
Collater.al and Brillo have joined forces to give even greater prominence to illustrators who are ready to take us into their world.

Over the next few months, the Instagram profiles of @collater.al and @brillo_magazine will feature the work of these young talents, who promptly responded to the open call launched by the two magazines, and which you can always review here.

DANIELE MORGANTI

LORENA SPURIO aka WABISABI

SOFIA ROMAGNOLO aka AZZURROSCURO

MARIANNA POGGIONI

CHARLOTTE LE BLEU

BERTRAND AZNAR

ANTONIO COLOMBONI aka SCOMBINATO

SHUT UP CLAUDIA

EDOARDO MARCONI aka RADIOCOMANDERO

Cover by Carlotte Le Bleu

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Art

Collater.al & Brillo. Together in the name of the love of illustration

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“Okja” in ten frames

Giulia Guido · 4 days ago · Art

“Okja” is a 2017 film directed by Bong Joon-ho. Although it did not rake in awards like the subsequent “Parasite“, “Okja” ranks among the South Korean director’s best works and features an ensemble cast that includes Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, and Jake Gyllenhaal.

The film tells the story of a young girl who for most of her life has raised a genetically modified “super pig,” building a bond of mutual affection with him. But their lives are set to change drastically as the industry that actually created the animal must take it back to begin the slaughtering process.
This is an exposing film against the mistreatment of animals within the meat industry that manages to deal with the topic by focusing on empathy and friendship. For this very reason in 2019 it was named one of the most influential films of the decade by the New York Times.

In “Okja,” the state of mind of the protagonist and her animal are reflected in the colors of the sets and the choices related to the cinematography, curated by Darius Khondji (Seven, Midnight in Paris, Uncut Gems), which manage to completely capture the viewer.

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Art

“Okja” in ten frames

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The illusion of calm in the illustrations of Kento IIDA

Tommaso Berra · 4 days ago · Art

You know the sky on certain summer days, when you couldn’t find a cloud miles away and everything above our heads is a delicate blue, the color of the sweetest of spun sugars? Illustrator Kento IIDA finds in this atmosphere of calm the inspiration for his works, images of tranquil landscapes but leaving an atmosphere of suspicion, as if something unforeseen will happen soon, or as if something unforeseen has just happened, far from the eyes of possible witnesses.
In these vignettes there are always elements or signs that suggest a movement that breaks the calm, sometimes the movement has already happened or is in progress, as in the case of cars launching from bridges or space missiles lifting angular clouds to the sky like marble sculptures.

Kento IIDA (who is based in Tokyo) incorporates elements of Japanese tradition in his illustrations, thus traditional buildings and views of snow-capped peaks that hint at Mount Fuji appear in these ambiguous scenes, as well as baseball players, a national sport in Japan and probably the artist’s favorite.
There are not only clear skies in the views, however; poetry is also provided by clouds, often single and isolated, or by gloomy skies that sound like an omen, in an increasingly suspended and uncertain time.

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Art

The illusion of calm in the illustrations of Kento IIDA

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Vickie Vainionpää’s code-generated works

Tommaso Berra · 1 day ago · Art

Artistic expression is now no longer bound only to manual gesture, and in some cases not even to the artist’s choice. Vickie Vainionpää‘s works in fact follow that artistic strand in which works are the result of codes, of an algorithm that creates unpredictable solutions by reworking basic information. The Montreal-based artist creates his works through a generative code, which traces a certain number of points placed in a Cartesian plane.
The result is that of twisted shapes like guts or extraterrestrial organic creatures, in which even the color and shades are dictated by the generative code.

The forms are then the basis for oil paintings on canvas, in which the digital forms acquire a presence and matter through the texture of the support, the shadows and the layering of color. Some of these canvases are recently on display in New York at The Hole NYC gallery for the artist’s solo exhibition entitled “Software.”
In Vickie Vainionpää’s works, the relationship between man and machine merges, the physical and virtual experience become interconnected to the point of blurring the genesis of everything. Who creates? Who is created by whom? A series of questions that help read and complicate the present.