Today we talk about

Claudio Santini

Started his carrier as photographer for interior designer’s publications. From a very detailed photography of pieces of design, to the more recent and last born art photography from which all the details are expunged and the work runs straight towards its essence. Architecture has a soul and this soul has been laid bare by Santini who has reduced his photographs of architecture to pure geometric lines. The line, its purity, presence / absence lead the viewer towards a silence full of inner meaning.

A state of meditation on the essence of the environment, on the chaos that surrounds us and that can overwhelm us or can pass us by without scratching our inner soul.

… .. “Los Angeles is a set of different styles that is not affected by the weight of history so I am creatively at ease in representing its urban fragments as places of abstraction and inspiration … … .. I am interested in suspension and expectation that I find in the most common and ordinary landscapes of this city. Through this type of observation, I can develop a vision similar to that of the contemplative experience in order to create works of abstract figuration. … .. “(Claudio Santini)

And so, from the chaos of the megalopolis the artist Santini begins to erase all the mass of information that bombards us on the streets; isolation from the context, isolation and focus of the vision only on the essentiality of the particular. Isolation of the artist when manipulating his own work. Meditative state of the artist that becomes an invitation to the viewer to enter a state of silence and
meditation to taste his works that are no longer just photographic, but at any cost essentially pictorial.

… .. ”I think that in a photograph the visual information is excessive. I need to reduce the photographic forms to the essential lines of a drawing on which color will then be applied with the mechanical means of printing or with the subsequent application of the traditional means of painting, in a final representation in which the image is transferred to canvas, paper, wood, metal or other medium. …. ” (Claudio Santini)

Result: The identity of a city: its soul, its essence captured by very few strokes that look like pencil. Works that identify a world: that of Los Angeles, which is penetrated so deeply as to make a pictorial picture of the city absolutely identifying with it. The whole identity of a world in a few traits.

His works

Born and raised in Rome, Italy, Claudio’s aesthetic consciousness and passion for photography began at an early age. While studying at the Architectural University and the Istituto Europeo di Design in Rome, he discovered his unique gift for architectural photography and began documenting the work of the most exciting emerging architectural talents.
Santini’s work was quickly recognized and published by architectural publication such as Abitare, Domus and Architectural Records. Since moving to Los Angeles in 1989 his work has continued to appear in the most influential architectural interiors magazines, books, on line publication. His photographs have also been featured in American publications such as California Home and Design, South Bay Magazine, Coastal Living, Sunset Magazine, Home, Country Living, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The San Francisco Chronicle.

I’m interested in the urban landscape: street, suburbia, architecture. Where man interact with the surrounding environment. I’m intrigued by the silence of the figurative abstractions of such visions.

I have always admired the sense of aggregation of ancient villages where the close proximity of the houses makes you feel part of a connected community and where the heat generated within the home is shared and held in a sort of architectural embrace. I embarked on a journey through Sicily in search of a lost lifestyle, in the memory of a distant past, to document and re-evaluate the wisdom of ordinary people who built, furnished and lived their homes following the simple rules dictated by necessity.