Alessio
Belloni

Alessio Belloni was born and grew up in Milano, Italy. Since he was a kid he loved art, especially music, his mother was a La Scala loggionista. He was trained by his father on the rudiments of Photography and, even if he showed an instinctive approach to light and composition, it has been only with the full development of the digital photography that he found the means to express in pictures what he has felt in music. In the era in which Great Narratives seem to be disappearing very quickly, it is important to be able to tell stories even through the lens of a camera.  The use Alessio Belloni makes of this lens succeeds in transforming reality’s normal perception. It is of little importance that this result is achieved with a long exposure, dividing the space in geometries and uniformly adding a violent dye onto black and white hues. If we looked into a kaleidoscope, we would see the icon slowly multiplying in search of a reference that may be linked to pure abstract graphics. The main object of the picture is lost while the viewer’s eye catches light hints of the people moving in the background, catching different moments of daily life in a single shot. Recently the photographer Jared Lim was able to capture the beauty of buildings emphasizing their lines and chromatic aspects; Piet Mondrian was famous for his black-proiled colours and Belloni’s red here recalls the structures and indexes the social value of the buildings while shapes become main protagonists of repeating patterns. The frenzy of daily life activities creeps in between Art and Culture, a transition that rules out for the viewer the possibility to recognize faces and forms. It is a progression that encloses individuals in polygonal hives as megacities could be seen. Each individual is unique but somehow no longer distinguishable in the mass, in the urban landscape that, rising vertically reduces the possibilities for personal expression. Apparently travel photography has the same purpose, namely to re-launch a new way to expand the eye, starting from the particular to arrive at a universal level. In motion, the camera lens emphasizes not only the point of arrival but also the journey of the creation phase. If individuals are still part of the image, they represent the contradiction of contemporary dichotomies: divided between spirituality and modernity and between fuel economy and tradition, leaving unanswered the question of the artist’s role as an aesthetic and social witness.