Luciano Usai is born on 31st of July 1972 in La Maddalena, land of his parental origins.
He grows up in Rome and develops a deep interest for photography since he was really young.
Luciano attends art school and in parallel with his studies he becomes assistant of important photo studios of Rome, among them Studio Granata and Studio Amendola. Through press agencies the photographer collaborates with some newspapers, getting interested in performing Arts and fashion since he was just at the beginning of his career.
When Luciano finishes his artistic studies at school, he decides to enrol in Architecture in Rome, continuing with his activity as a photographer. He meets Arturo Patten, with whom he weaves a relationship on mutual esteem and friendship, that will influence some choices of the young photographer, like his great interest for quality and print process of black and white pictures, that Luciano supervises personally.
Attracted by light and interaction between light itself and architecture, by objects and people, in parallel with his activity as a stage photographer, Usai designs and supervises lights for theatrical plays. short films and documentaries.
Among Luciano's last works, we mention "The Music under the Sea" (2001) for Marina Confalone and "Rever l'Autre. En Hommage au Mime Marceau" (2007) for Acta Fabula.
Driven by curiosity and will to pit his skill against new technical difficulties and issues, Lucian Usai has explored different photographic genres through his images: stage photos for cinema, theatre, dance and fashion, photos for newspapers and scientific photography, especially aerial and underwater.
The artist works together with the architect Ludvica Gibin on the publication of the book "Roman pavement. The Sanpietrino", that comes out in 2003 at Gangemi Edition.
Since 2004 Luciano is working in an international environment, travelling to Chicago, New York and Paris.
In May 2006 he has his first one-man exhibition in Milan, at Grand Hotel Plaza, titled "Urban Finds". The exhibition is composed by four sections: urban finds, a study concerning the object as a sign of urban contemporary life; the architecture, Rome, New York, Paris, Chicago, the permanence of art, interior fore-shortenings of museums when, passed the bystanders, the art work stays on and communicates with the lens, the music, with some portraits of pianists, conductors and dancers.
In October of the same year the photographer is invited to exhibit in Paris, at the Academy of Music Konstantin Bogin and in this way his exhibition "Music and Dance" is born, centred around a series of images that gather the relationship between body in movement and architecture.
In 2007 Usai exhibits in Rome, at Galleria 196 in his one-man exhibition "The Art of Dance" by Sabine Frontellizzi; the proceeds of sold pictures are donated to charity.
Luciano is a photographer and teacher of pose and History of Fashion Photography at the International Academy of High Fashion and Costume "Koefia" of Rome.
The pictures taken by Luciano Usai in the last five years are expressions of his passionate research concerning movement and dance. These images evoke lightness and darkness, strength and grace of the body that bends to the music, "blurred" images, meanwhile indistinct and defined in their lines.
The artist has studied movement since 1992, object of investigation is the body in the urban space, the flight of birds, the water, the trees bended by wind and the waves of La Maddalena. Luciano experiments, often without printing, with photos taken by his camera in motion or still.
In 2001, to improve his awareness for the movements performed by dancers, Usai starts attending ballet classes with Elisabeth Mac Dowell. During these two years of studying the first images are born in which he, through a pondered reflection on Degas' art, uses his camera like a brush: Compagnia di danza and Cinecittą (exhibited for the first time in Milano in 2006).
After these works Luciano Usai photographs ballet dancers like Vladimir Drevianko, Roberto Bolle and Alessandra Ferri, but also less known dancers and pupils of the National Academy of Dance of Rome. His interest for the dance reaches different genres: he takes pictures that gather the essence of the movement of flamenco and tango.
Usai's photographs, although they are born in a digital time, are retouched with computer-techniques. Trails of colour and strokes of light, as the lens catches them, paint figures sometimes named with evocative, ironic or suggestive titles by the photographer and it is the very title that reveals the point of view to read the images: the light white skirt of a dancer, if turned upside down, becomes the calyx of a flower, Hibiscus.
From 6th December 2008 to 25th January 2009 Luciano Usai has an one-man exhibition, ARABESQUE. Dance photographed by Luciano Usai Nation Gallery of Modern Art at Museum Boncompagni Ludovisi for decorative Arts, Costume and Fashion between XIX and XX centuries. He exhibits 40 photo prints large-sized on metal paper in print 1/9 and moreover a series of stage costumes made by the Teatro dell'Opera of Rome, that are part of the collection of the theatre.
In April 2009 Usai exhibits at the Farnese Palace in Caprarola for the culture week.
From July 2009 to November of the same year, the photographer travels between Asia, Europe, Brazil for schemes that will come out during the first months of 2010. |
