A mosaic of garage doors, of facades houses of caravans in their small garden, classrooms, beach cabins, cable-cars... A whole inventory of modest and standardized architectures. The typology is at the heart of the photographic researches of Bruno Fontana. A typology carefully elaborated, through a precise protocol of shooting, product of a rigorous and committed reflection. The photographer browse the territory, spots the recurring forms, extracts them from the invisibility of our habituation in standardized lifestyles. Entomologist of the everyday life, he examines in detail our living environments. Hypnotic effect of these repeated forms, drawing a world so homogeneous in appearance. The reality seems to stutter, repeat ad infinitum. But even so... to the careful observer, subtle variations appear. Here, half a condominium facade was plastered, there, it is the color of shutter is customed a component which is the only custom element of the suburban housing complex. Through blatant uniformity of our environment, it is the personal touch that tracks the photographer. Little touches that are the marks by which we appropriate our living environment. It is through them that the human is evident in these images. Through the blatant uniformity of our environment , it is these small personal touches which tracks the photographer. Little touches which are the marks by which we appropriate our living environment . It is through them that the human is present in these pictures. Because is not only the architecture that aims Bruno Fontana. But also the history who advances inexorably , rubbing out the past or repainting it on acceptable colours of today. Then the approach of the photographer becomes heritage : keeping the memory of these forms of today that we are next and we don’t see anymore. But the entomologist has a wider intention : to represent life . Show how the smallest touches of life carry the whole life . We could then consider each photograph as elementary particle of a body which reveals itself when the polyptych assembly is processed. Each caravan, each facade , each cabin as the first element of a cellular world. Then , against all odds , we find that the living is the entire subject of these photographs . The documentary tradition in which they are based is only a pretext to wandering, driving along country roads , roaming into the periphery, and having a look the world in detail. Then reveals the spirit of the entomologist and in a wider way, of the humanist scientist of the nineteenth century: The scientific method can not be considered without a poetic look of the world.
Bruno Fontana's work is building on a subtle balance in the representation of urban and natural environments. In straddling both worlds, he triggers thoughts on the various ways of appropriating land. Series after series, Bruno Fontana experiments, investigates and suggests new insights into landscapes. In manipulating images sometimes to the boundaries of reality, he sparks a novel understanding of the relationship between ourselves and our environment. Each series focuses on legacy and memory, which are guiding principles of the artist's photographical approach.
