Claudio Napolitano was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1968. Napolitano is a self-taught photographer and studied Audio Visual Advertisement in Madrid and Pedagogical Sciences in Venezuela. He currently lives in the U.S.

Claudio Napolitano’s background as an advertising photographer has honed his ability to create authentic miseenscénes, projecting a cinematographic quality into his personal work: the portrait as a scene, frozen in time. Claudio’s portraits are not the result of a random moment or fortunate accident; they are minutely orchestrated shots that breathe life into previously conceived images  which have sprung from his own vast visual imaginary and wealth of technical knowledge.

At first glance, Claudio’s portraits are beautiful, ethereal, emotional, and embed themselves in the mind of the observer through the clever use of popular imaginary (The Little Prince, Vogue, advertising in general). The cultured eye will discover pictorial qualities which allude to the history of art, especially the great masters of painting and light such as Caravaggio or Rembrandt; and references to the great geniuses of 20th century photography such as George Hurrell.

The light in Claudio Napolitano’s photography is only used as an effect, on the subject and the surrounding space. In the series Street Beauties, light is skillfully employed to highlight details found in the textures, glow of skin and clothing; in Smoke Signals to grant corporeal qualities to the incorporeal, turning cigarette smoke into another character; or to create an atmosphere of reflection and redemption in the series Mission Accomplished. Light is conveyed as mysterious, infusing the photographed spaces with an unreal and dreamlike luminosity.

Distancing himself from the conventional, aesthetic themes of traditional artistic photography, he boldly depicts heavily choreographed scenes and plucks from anonymity those who are generally “forgotten” or “invisible” in contemporary Latin America:the homeless, children and the elderly. In the words of novelist Paul Auster, Claudio uses the camera as “a way of making the world disappear, a technique to find the invisible”. His relationship with the other is one of intimacy. There is no exoticism and distance in his approach to the Latin American reality; on the contrary, there is an intentional search for complicity with the person being photographed.

Claudio presents an otherness stripped of strangeness; the beauty and emotion of the finished image does not produce uncomfortable relationships with the subject or the observer. The subject appears “just as he/she really is”, only the context is manipulated. What is shown is just as crucial as what is not shown, contextualizing (the scene as an extension of identity in Mission Accomplished) or decontextualizing (editing and abstraction to portray the raw truth in Street Beauties) are strategies used by Claudio to depict the true self in front of the camera.

Intentionally unreal and dramatic, Claudio Napolitano’s portraits construct a monumental history of the subject. They are timeless images, conceived to last.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2007

• Gallery Edge 46, Miami

2004

• Taller de Roberto Mata, Caracas, Venezuela

SELECTION GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2011

• AAF New York. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. New York, USA
• Karlsrure Art Fair. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. Karlsrure, Germany
• AAF Brussels. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. Brussels, Belgium
• IFAE Palm Beach. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. Florida, USA
• Los Angeles Art Show. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. Los Angeles, USA
• AAF Milan. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. Milan, Italy
• Palm Beach Show. Villa del Arte Galleries, Barcelona, Spain. Florida, USA

   

2010

• Brazilian Art Museum (FAAP), Sao Paulo, Brazil
• Theprintspace, London, United Kingdom
• La Venue, New York, USA
• Kunstkasteel (Art Castle), Woerden-Centrum, Netherlands

2009

• MILK Studios, New York, USAThe DASK Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
• "Hasselblad Masters of Photography 2009", Cornwall House, Hong Kong

SPECIAL PARTICIPATIONS

2008

• Auction / Image Sold Step By Step Foundation, USA

1995 - 1999

• Photography Teacher in the Caracas Design Institute, Venezuela

AWARDS

2010

• International Colors Award Honorific mention in Fine art, USA, 2010
• Hasselblad Masters awards, Denmark, 2010

2009

• Nominee International Color Awards, USA, 2009

2008

• PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR, Circulo Creativo de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela

2007

• PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR, Circulo Creativo de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela

1998

• Coleccion de Honor, National Photography Convention, Caracas, Venezuela

LECTURES

2010

• Congreso Nacional de Fotografia, Bogotá, Colombia
• Photocamp Fabrikken, Oslo, Norway
• The Hasselblad Studios, London, United Kingdom
• Photokina, Köln Messe, Cologne, Germany
• Show and Tell AD013, Miami , USA
• Seminario SDI, Caracas, Venezuela
• Circulo Creativo, Caracas, Venezuela

PUBLICATIONS

2010

• Hasselblad Masters Emotion, Editorial Teneues, New York
• The printspace, London, United Kingdom
• Photokina, Cologne, Germany
• Victor Magazine, October, 2010
• Victor Magazine: Photographer of the Month June edition, Hasselblad, July, 2010
• El Universal, Venezuela, March, 2010
• Seminario SDI 2010, Venezuela
• Profifoto, German Photographer's Association, 2010
• Avecofa, Venezuelan Photography Association, 2010
• Rangefinder Magazine, California, USA , 2010
• Photocamp, Oslo, Norway, 2010

2009

• Rever Magazine
• El Nacional, Venezuela, 2009
• Victor Magazine, September, 2009
• Hasselblad Official Website