Davide Bramante’s simultaneous visions manifest through a subtle game of perceptive illusions and the dualism of light and shadow. Temporary stratifications translate into veiled landscapes, overlapping situations, places, thoughts, memories, travels, feelings and hopes into one single time frame, as though suspended between past, present and future.
Davide’s photographs take the cue from his roots and transform into his recognizable stylistic approach. For centuries Syracuse – where he was born – has been the cradle of the many cultures that have crossed it during their periods of maximum magnificence: Carthaginians, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Spanish and French.
With the multiple exposure during (non digital) shooting technique, the images then undergo a plexiglass mounting treatment, setting bi-dimensionality free to transmute into three-dimensionality. Dream-like hints where the transparencies and shadows are caught only to unfold into a delicate effect of interlaced evanescent realities.
Ferris wheels and rivers streaming into buildings, neon signs hanging in the midst of the sky, pyramids in the heart of urban spots, motorbikes crossing scaffolds… (Im)possible worlds collide into one unique vision that mirrors contemporary society through a magnifying lens.
Always on the move, between one journey and the other Davide retires in the countryside to live in harmony with nature. It’s exactly during one of these breaks that we have a very pleasing conversation.
. . .
WHY
why and how did you end up in your career path?
I grew close to art because my surname is rather demanding. When I was a kid, my grandfather used my tease my interest for the unknown asking me “Do you know who Bramante is?” so I found out that Bramante was a Renaissance artist, and my interest and passion in general arts began to flourish since.
My creative and artistic path comes from my blood, from my origins. My photos are the result of image overlay, one on top of the other. Three thousand years ago Carthaginians, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Spanish and French passed through here… Everyone! So our blood is mixed, just like our architecture. It’s the outcome of all those who’ve passed here. They’ve always been here in the maximum splendor and expansion of their culture. If you look around here you’ll see all these influences, particularly in the case of the Dome of Syracuse: it embraces 5 styles.
WHO
how would you describe yourself in a few words?
An art ultra… because besides making it, when I can I produce it, when I can I buy it, when I can I engage it. When I can, I connect people. I like connecting people and stories.
WHAT
what is your source of inspiration?
The source of inspiration is the energy I find in the morning as soon as I wake up. I have a house in Syracuse old town, in an island called Ortigia. But I prefer living in the countryside, in a magic place on top of the mountain, 24 kilometres away from the city center. I live an agricultural lifestyle; when the sun sets I sleep and when the sun rises I wake up. I have an incredible force and energy in the morning… more so if the weather is nice. I see kilometres away, I see the sea, the mountains, the Etna. The further I see, the more energy I take in, the more psyched I get.
WHERE
where do you go to when you need a break?
I come back home in the countryside, where I have my dogs and where I breed my messenger pigeons. It’s a passion I’ve had since I was a child, they’re my pet therapy. Thanks to them I wake up every morning and as I watch them fly I look at the sky… I look at the sky and I regenerate.
WHEN
when and what will your next steps be?
By steps I mean a new city or a nation to visit. Consider I’m always travelling, so New Delhi at the end of April, and Mexico at the end of May. My philosophy is that life must be travelled through. You can’t go back in time, so I’ll keep doing it until I’ll have the force to experience, meet, discover, and fill up my eyes, head, hands and lungs with emotions.
**WILDCARD
your technique plays on space-time overlay. If you could trascend the space-time dimension – the here and now – where would you be?
I’d be in the middle of a green field picking wild asparagus.