q)Introduce
yourself, name,age, location.
a)I'm
Francesco Paolo Catalano, I'm 34 years old and I live in Palermo
(Sicily
q) Can you
describe your path to being an artist? When did you really get into it?
a)I began to
realize photos after studing the gender and queer theories. The self
portraiture and the photographic portraiture were a natural needing to
comunicate about the cultural construction of identity and personality. I don't
know if I'm an artist. I only know that since 2006 I changed my "path of
life" to describe my psychological observations and my past
obsessions.
q) Describe
your ideals and how they manifest in your work.
a)I strive for
the absence of vanity and cultural prejudice. Gender is a photographic
construction. This is the starting point of my photographic work: to translate
the cultural relativism in photography, through a fashion, surrealism and
cinematographic language.
q) Is music a
part of your studio time? What do you listen to?
a)Music is
like the cinematic and literary inspirations. Sade, Prince, Depeche Mode, David
Sylvian, are among the artists who listen.
q) How would
you describe your work to someone?
a)My
photographs are like the drawings of my infancy. Photography allows me to tell
a part of who I am, what I was and my attitude to perfmorming in the mirror. My
work is my definition of beauty, silence and observation.
q) Influences?
a)Andy Warhol,
Cindy Sherman, Grace Jones, Lisetta Carmi in Italy, Diane Arbus, Betthina
Reims, Quentin Crisp, and my personal queer icon Patty Owens. I'm struck by
people without fear of exposure and repetition over time.
q) Describe
your process for creating new work.
a)I write my
dreams. I note dialogues, frames of movies, memories and missed emotions. My
portraits are often the beginning of my projects: "raw data" on which
to argue for future portraits and stories.
q) What advice
do you have for artists looking to show their work?
a)It's
important, I think, to know about marketing and targeted advertising. To
realize a professional portfolio and to offer itself to art galleries or
magazines in function of specific projects.
q) What are
you really excited about right now?
a)The idea of
inventing stories and characters is really exciting for me, like the
photographic process itself and the back stage of a performance. The ice cream
makes me happy right now
q) What do you
love most about where you live?
a)Palermo Palermo
q) Best way to
spend a day off?
a)Run, walk,
look for places with trees and watch the people on the street. Eating outdoors
and search for the serendipity.
q) Upcoming
shows/ projects?
a)Coming soon
an exibition of mine curated by Laura Francesca Di Trapani in collaboration
with Maurizio Veronese in Palermo at Spazio Cannatella, an Art Gallery in
Palermo. An exibition about my queer icon-character Patty Owens and the
cultural idolatry of a pop icon. In this period I'm publicizing my first job as
art director for the music video Jökking by Donato Di Trapani (http://youtu.be/dBrozYgszgg) based on a story of mine, Costanza. I'm
writing for a next photographic theater project too.
Where can
people see more of your work on the internet?
On flickr I
have a photostream with portraits and another one with self portrait. I like
tumblr too to show the complete works about a photographic shooting. My new
tumblr is, for istance, dedicate to the Patty Owens portraits.
