About Karim Carella

***ARTFINDER AWARDS 2023 - ARTIST OF THE YEAR***

Attracted since childhood by the beauty of nature and natural landscapes, I began to express myself artistically at the age of seven during primary school by making drawings and small landscape paintings. I maintained my artistic vocation and predilection for the landscape even in my adolescence when I discovered and started using the camera, strongly inspired above all by the majesty of the mountain landscapes that were the protagonists of my summer holidays.

I continued to cultivate my hobby for photography for a long time until as an adult, after twenty years of work as an analyst and head of statistics and market research, I decided to devote myself full time to photography.

I'm a mountain lover but at the same time I'm a man by the sea, so I have portrayed landscapes of various kinds, perfecting over time my self-taught photographic technique thanks to a deep and careful reading of essays and author's texts, as well as a meticulous and scrupulous observation of the techniques of the great contemporary photographic artists.

In the first period of my professional career I found my dimension in figurative, monochromatic landscape photography, in long exposure and with a predominantly square cut. This minimalist and austere style has allowed me to give my compositions a sense of deep stillness and intimacy, almost isolating the scenes and subjects immortalized in space and time.

Figurative landscape photography was joined in a second phase of my artistic career by an important abstract imprint, the result of an intense work of internalization and experimentation, in which the landscape subject is stripped of its figurative characteristics to transform itself into an image indefinite and ethereal that in denying the representation of reality wants to exalt the cry of a nature that screams and rebels against the threat of the human being. In these abstract subjects, shapes, lines and colors are exalted and emphasized to create images of strong visual and emotional impact.

Since I started as an art photographer professionally, I moved with my first supporter, my wife, a camper and our beloved cats, to a small seaside town in southern Tuscany. This quiet provincial town proved to be the ideal place to plan my photographic outings in search of the scenic beauty of Tuscany, but also to plan long trips by camper to discover the most remote and idyllic lands of the European continent.

Since 2012 my artworks achieved many international awards, such as IPA Photo Awards, ND Awards, Monochrome Awards, Black&White Spider Awards and MIFA Awards. Moreover some of my photographs has been published on the best known magazine for photography Adore Noir and ND magazine.

My photography is slow and silent, and it is in the silence of an isolated beach or in the unreal stillness of a green hill that I find my deepest artistic inspiration. The first light of dawn, so soft and suffused, the gray skies full of clouds, the marine horizons, the rocks that emerge from the water, the brown silhouettes of solitary trees, are among the favorite elements that often come to life in my photographic compositions.

It's also very important in my creative process, the editing phase in the studio where I scrupulously analyze every single negative before dedicating myself to the development work, in search of those details, contrasts, plays of light, shadow and tone that inspired my shot. The final image must perfectly reflect the most intimate and reflective aspect of the moment of shooting and the scene experienced.

For the last phase of my creative process, the printing process, after many series of tests and experiments, I chose the technique and materials that in my opinion are able to give the greatest possible prominence to my creations. My limited edition works are Giclée prints on Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Bright White 310 gsm paper or on Innova Exhibition Matte Polycotton Canvas 380gsm, two surfaces that both combine a very high quality rendering with museum-level durability over time.

I always feel a great emotion when I see my works come to life and physically materialize; I relive all the sensations and passions that prompted me to create that image.

If my works find your appreciation, do not hesitate to contact me for any type of information, for details on the technical specifications or on the different printing possibilities.

Best

Karim