Livorno hosts “Fusion 24”: a photographic dialogue between the visions of two artists. 

From Saturday 2nd to Thursday 14th November the spaces of the Biblioteca dei Bottini dell'Olio (piazza del Luogo Pio) will host the photographic exhibition “Fusion 24”, a project based on the different stylistic, physical and philosophical visions of two photographers from Livorno: Francesco Martinelli and Matteo Lorenzetti. Thanks to the models portrayed in their shots, in distinct and sometimes opposite moments and situations, and then merging the two "visions" into a single portrait give rise to a series of dreamlike and surreal images. These are portraits that go beyond the simple observation of the “model”.

The exhibition will develop with photo paintings (approximately 14-20 prints 100×70 cm) depicting the cast portrait and for a better understanding of the technique used and the starting material, two smaller photo frames depicting the original portraits.

Purpose of the project is to bring art together with social commitment. The same artistic project was created to unite two different worlds and two different visions; the world and vision of a subject with motor disabilities and that of a able-bodied subject, fused together to create what society as a whole should do: include, merge, amalgamate.

The images, in fact, they are portraits of ordinary people with their peculiarities, their feelings and their defects portrayed in different ways and at different times by the two photographers and then amalgamated with various superposition methods. Hence the title “Fusion” indicative of the intent to unite the photos but also two visions, two worlds, two ways of expressing oneself to create something new and make the public understand that harmonizing different aspects between people and in people themselves is possible and that harmony, in an increasingly divided and divisive world is possible. Even between subjects with different physical conditions and needs.

The photographers

Francis Martinelli was born in the eclectic Medici city of Livorno in the heart of beautiful Tuscany, in 1984 and has been involved in photography for about 15 years.

After studying at the G. Galilei Industrial Technical Institute and an accident involving him, he graduated as a computer expert and began to take an interest in graphics, especially in the Adobe environment.

Hand in hand he began to take an interest in photography almost as a game, trying to implement his computer knowledge to the remaining skills left to have more and more control of his camera.

Over the years, refining his technique, inventing new ways to shoot, participates and wins in local, national and international competitions. Collaborates on various projects with magazines, websites, books, clients and associations.

His shots are aimed at researching a stimulus to increase his cultural background, cognitive, social and emotional in order to explore, through photography, the various facets of the human soul and the environment that surrounds it.

Matthew Lorenzetti was born in Livorno in the year in which Sandro Pertini was elected President of the Republic and where Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II, 1978.

He is convinced that photography means emotion and that the essence of a beautiful image lies mainly in the story, in the ability to say something, to convey a state of mind. In addition to the basics of composition and technique, the photographer must be able to freeze sensations and sometimes even feelings in the shot, skillfully mixing reality, the soul of the subject and his own point of view.

The photographic styles he prefers the most are reportage and scene photography, especially in the musical field.

The photographic experience that has most influenced him over the years was going on safari in South Africa, a fantastic experience in a land that inevitably “infected” him with the most serious form of Africa sickness.

Over the years, although I did not feel photography as a "competitive subject", He participated and won several photography competitions, including the one for the Giro d'Italia cycling competition in 2011.

He publishes his images on some national newspapers and institutional sites such as, Aereonautica Militare, Frecce Tricolori, Comune di Livorno, Comune di Abbadia San Salvatore. He has held numerous individual and collective photographic exhibitions, especially with the photographic association Il Salmastro of Livorno, an association of which he was one of the founding members as well as vice-president., which has dealt with photographic training and the creation of exhibitions and projects at a local level.