ANALOG NATURE

MARIO ERMOLI

// Mario is a photographer/artist from Milan, who began his professional photography activity in 1989 with portraits of Italian actors in the world of theatre. While he continues portrait work to this day, he also loves still life photography and has shared a set of images from his conceptual still-life series “Analog Nature”.

Mario´s initial portrait work got him to develop his first solo exhibition. Today he works with important advertising agencies as well as Italian and European magazines. Nonetheless, his research and curiosity in photography never stops. He has continued to show his photography in solo and collective exhibitions covering various themes. He also began the exciting experience of teaching photography, specializing in portraits from 2003 to 2018 at the “Istituto Europeo di Design” of Milan. In 2018 he started a collaboration with the gallery Valeria Bella in Milan.

“Over the years I have photographed many of the great masters of Italian architecture and design, such as Ettore Sottsass, Vico Magistretti, Achille Castiglioni, Angelo Mangiarotti and many other figures of contemporary culture such as Wim Wenders, Jean Nouvel, Alessandro Mendini, Nathalie du Pasquier and many others. In addition to my activity as a portraitist, I always have made still life photography, because I consider photography as a means of total expression and I never wanted to limit my artistic choices”, Mario told us.

“Art is a lie that allows us to recognize the truth.”

Pablo Picasso

What draws you to the arts?

“I chose photography as a means of expression because, for me, it apparently represents the most realistic way of representing reality, even if, thinking about it, every photograph, when printed, reveals its surreal nature, because after all, it is a piece of reality attached to a sheet of paper and from this comes out a second key of interpretation, made of evocations and feelings that, in some way, already belong to us and come directly from our inner world.”

What do you like best about this photographic project?

“The photographic series “Analog Nature” for me, surely represents a moment of great importance, this because I found myself, also because of the lockdown, to observe with more attention my home microcosm, made of common objects, such as heaters, dishes, glasses, food, etc., and from this experience was born the idea and the awareness that everything is different from every other thing, and everything is unique in the real world. This is because each moment is different from the previous one and the next, like eggs, similar but never equal.“

Beautifully executed with clean shapes and lines and use of contrast, Mario´s black and white conceptual still-life series Analog Nature is at once quirky and surreal, inviting the viewer to think about meaning. “Nothing can be the same as another thing in the real world,” says Mario. “This photo series deals with the theme of uniqueness in the real world. Let’s try to think that everything we see in front of us is actually unique and unrepeatable, every single moment is different from the previous one and the next, we often don’t realise it but what photography freezes is actually a unique little wonder every time, and when you finally realise it, it’s something that could change your day. But the final question is: ‘Did you see what I saw?'”

Click on the photos to see a larger image and the image title.