ANDREA COMETTA
CESI N’EST PAS UN POISSON

Andrea Cometta after ten years is back in Genoa with a solo show that includes fifteen black and white photographs including portraits and nudes. Looking at his images is like being in front of his strong, bursting personality, almost always against the grain. Immediate, direct, insinuating, intense in his search for the true substance of his subjects as if always trying to capture their essence in the precise moment he is taking the photograph.
Ironic, playful and teasing but never trivial nor disrespectful, he distinguishes himself from other contemporary portrait photographers for the balance between the purely classical aesthetics of his images – even when he surprises with  his unusual perspective and compositions - and the psychological  and physical tension that the same images live  and transmit.

As he says, "they are stolen shots but more often people placed in the corner by the events of life and by that dirty bastard that I am .... but always with great respect and tenderness, though"

Peter Weiemair writes "Cometta has to outline situations that allow him to bring to light some aspects of the personality of the other. Rather than finding eccentric solutions, he tries to be  innovative by deepening the understanding of the persons represented. I believe that this is just the great quality of Cometta, who employs different and untapped strategies. The normal expectations that we have with regard to portrait photography are often left disappointed.”