10 Questions To Discover Italian Photographer Gabriele Rosati

Tell us about your creative process

I research a lot. So so much. I spend hours and hours searching and searching and searching.

Photographers, stylists, painters, dancers, theater companies. Everything. I love to mix the outside with the inside. Others versus myself.

The thing I’m most interested in is what’s around me. Physically. People, friends and strangers. Places, objects, sights. I guess if I had to define myself, I would consider myself a collector. A collector of “things”, where things include pretty much everything.

What is the genesis of your artistic persona?

After my studies in sculpture I wanted to try something bi-dimensional and so I started a year long course centered on the technical part of photography. Once I finished that I enrolled into the school that changed my life, Polimoda where I’m currently attending my last year of Art Direction Course.

That moment was extremely important in my career. That’s when I realized how drawn I was towards mixing different art fields, different textures, different worlds. Treating pictures as sculptures or painting or sketches.

I love images of all kinds. I love trying to create images of any kind. More than a photographer,I would love to become a visual storyteller where the story can be told by any visual mediums.

How do you keep improving your craft?

I always tried to collaborate with people I admire. Whenever I’m working with someone on a project I always put my 100% into it. I want to get an extremely human connection and not just a professional one. I’d say that all the people I had the chance to meet and work with gave me something important for my life and work, and I hope I gave them something too.

Who were some inspirational people in your life?

The first person who turned me to this world was my middle school art teacher, who showed me the paintings and sketches of Amedeo Modigliani. I just fell in love with them! I was shocked. I’m eternally grateful to him. In Polimoda I met Silvia who is my life-mentor I’d say.

She’s incredible. I will always thank her for the all work we’ve done together.

What inspires your work as a photographer?

I’m highly influenced from the past, especially from what I don’t remember or know about.

I see that as an empty container that I can fill. Everything that comes from another “era” is loaded with history, with life, and this attracts me strongly. I like to analyze it and then re-contextualize it all.

I have an obsession with postcards from strangers. I collect them. I have almost 50 now, I think. They are “places” full of life where I like to imagine who they might have belonged to, who might have touched them or simply who might have lost or forgotten them.

They are like “objects” ready to be revived. I always respect them because, in the end, they are not mine, I simply take care of them.

Top 3 dream collabs?

I have 3 artist i would love to work with: paul mpagi sepuya, gherard demetz and anne imhof

What is the purpose of your work?

I do this primarily for me, out of personal need. However, I hope to create a relationship between me, my work, and the viewer. I like to believe that the viewers can discover a new connection with themselves through what I do.

I would like my work to be some sort of a bridge, connecting different shores.I like to imagine that we can find ourselves right there, in the middle of that bridge, in the middle of my work and have a pure interaction.

Having worked in fashion for quite a long time now, is there an aspect you care about the most when it comes to designing clothes and apparel?

There is a thing that I really care a lot about and it’s “having a message”. Having something to say. Preferably something meaningful. Because at the end everyone can make clothes but only a few designers are able to tell a story with their creations.