Teresa Emanuele was born in Rome in 1980.

She earned a BA in law from Rome's LUISS University and an LLM from Columbia University. It was living in New York City that fostered her interest in art as she began taking her first photographs, learning more about the medium along the way. In 2008 she attended the PhotoManhattan - School of Photography, where she perfected technique in black&white and portraiture. She quit as an associate in a Wall Street law firm at the end of 2008 and moved back to Rome to dedicate more time to art.

Her artistic research focuses on the three-dimensional and kinetic potential of black&white prints on transparent surfaces such as glass and methacrylate. Teresa is also a consultant for MACRO - The Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome. 

About the technique:

Teresa Emanuele is mostly inspired by the beauty of Nature and the power of Mankind, even though the human presence hardly ever appears in her photographs.

Emanuele’s most recent work features black & white photographs printed directly on transparent surfaces, such a glass and Oroglas.

By hanging the prints at a few centimeters off the wall with custom-made hooks and by pointing at them any source of light, the prints cast a shadow on the wall behind. The result is a unique 3D effect, unknown to other forms of photography and printing.

Moreover, Emanuele has been experimenting kinetic photography with her so called “shadow-boxes”.  With these works she challenges the statics of photography by framing her prints and hiding miniature fans within the frame. These fans blow a gentle wind on a layer of white fabric, also hidden in the frame. As a result, the shadows cast by the print on the fabric are gently animated, as if a soft wind was blowing, and the photographs are brought back to life.

Emanuele is also investigating all possible interactions between digital and analog photography. In addition to film photography and darkroom printing, Emanuele engraves photographs on zinc and copper (so called photo-etching) and produces limited edition with a printing press.

La rielaborazione incessante della “bellezza”… quasi un mantra che ricorre davanti alla ricerca fotografica di Teresa Emanuele, davanti ai suoi cicli sul paesaggio naturale e artificiale. Una visione in cerca del sublime spontaneo, dell’estasi in equilibrio, della forma come apparizione tra evanescenza e impatto solido. Il mondo narrato riguarda i nostri paesaggi, i luoghi dell’anima che desideriamo, ma anche gli spazi del quotidiano che la vita ci assegna. Un progetto sul nodo ideale tra scienza e fantascienza, sul limbo che divide e avvicina le due dimensioni: il pragmatismo concreto da una parte, la visionarietà dall’altra. Emanuele sta nel punto mediano, sul crinale in cui la scienza ha bisogno d’istinto e la fantascienza chiede ragione e razionalità. La sua fotografia attraversa quel limbo con attitudine mercuriale, liquidamente plasmabile attorno alle cose, come un abito che si adagia in modo morbido, lasciando la sensazione accesa della materia ma anche del suo spirito aleggiante. 

Gianluna Marziani

Il lavoro di Teresa Emanuele è basato sull’esercizio del particolare isolato dal meccanismo narrativo. E sono proprio le pause narrative, il proliferare di digressioni, che danno luogo alla pienezza narrativa, il piacere dell’affabulazione infinita che non a caso affascinava Goethe. E’ artista viaggiatrice e nomade, ma niente affatto tentata dal reportage; piuttosto, si interroga sul ruolo culturale della natura nel terzo millennio. Semplicemente sceglie il particolare e la digressione, le ombre invece della luce, tentando di dar movimento a queste sue superfici così ricche di vibrazioni. 

Luca Beatrice

Il lavoro di Teresa Emanuele è incentrato sull’ambiguità della visione fotografica e sull’evanescenza del concetto di “realtà”. Si tratta di una ricerca molto personale di un paesaggio “altro”, fortemente onirico e a tratti inquietante.

Alessandro Riva

Inside a Shadow-box, 2013

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SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2015 - "IN SOMNIA - Atto Unico" curated by Achille Bonito Oliva - AdnKronos Museum, Rome

2015 - "IN SOMNIA - Atto Unico" curated by Achille Bonito Oliva - Festival dei Due Mondi, Palazzo Racani Arroni, Spoleto

2013 - "QVOD VIDES, TOTVM" curated by Dalya Islam - Alaan Artspace, Riyadh (KSA)

2013 - "QVOD VIDES, TOTVM" curated by Dalya Islam - Cultural Section of the Italian Consul General, Jeddah (KSA)

2012 - “Work to Become” curated by Luce Monachesi - Galleria il Cortile Archivio Sante Monachesi, Rome

2012 - "Rushed" curated by Simona Cresci - Spazio Cerere, Rome

2012 - "Ecfrasi” curated by Luca Beatrice - Contini Galleria d’Arte, Venice

2011 - "Rushed" curated by Olga Sviblova - Gallery A-3, Moscow

2010 - "Il Treno del Sorriso" - Auditorium Parco della Musica and Museo Mastroianni, Rome

2009 - "venerdìtredici" curated by Mauro de Felice - Galleria Monogramma, Rome

2008 - "Vacanze Romane" - Antico Circolo Tiro a Volo, Rome

2007 - "Randomly, Casualmente" - Galleria dell'Orologio, Rome

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2014/2015 - "Bienal del Fin del Mundo" curated by Massimo Scaringella, Palacio Municipal, Mar del Plata (Argentina)

2014 - "Pop Up" curated by Alessandro Riva - Hubei Museum of Art, Hubei (China)

2014 - "Eolie 1950-2015. Mare Motus" curated by Lorenzo Zichichi - Castello, Lipari

2013 - "Atollo - Variazioni" curated by Gianluca Marziani - Palazzo Collicola Arti Visive, Spoleto

2013 - "Herself" curated by Giuliano Matricardi - Il Ponte Contemporanea, Rome

2013 - "Visioni in Blocco" curated by Melania Rossi - Galleria Rossmut, Rome

2013 - "Crossover - A dialog between the Chinese School of Hubei and the new Italian art scene" curated by Alessandro Riva - Le Tese 113, 55th Venice Biennale

2012 -  "Acqua, Aria, Arte" - Musei di San Salvatore in Lauro, Rome

2012 - “Biennale Stemperando” curated by Giovanna Barbero – Biblioteca Nazionali di Torino, Cosenza e Roma

2012 - “Il divino nell’arte contemporanea” curated by Roberto BIlotti and Giovanni Intra Sidoli – Complesso Monumentale di Sant’Agostino, Cosenza

2012 - “Viva Palermo” curated by Roberto Bilotti, Giovanni Intra Sidola and Alessandro Bazan – Palazzo di Napoli e Costantino ai Quattro Venti, Palermo

2012 - "Rossmut" curated by Giuseppe Stagnitta - Galleria Rossmut, Rome

2012 - "ART! L’Arte Recupera un Teatro" - Palazzo Incontro, Rome

2011 - 21th Istanbul Art Fair – Padiglione Italia curated by Francesco Gallo

2011 - “La salute vien con l’arte” curated by Teresa Coratella - Amref, Giornata del Contemporaneo

2011 - "Madreterra" curated by Luce Monachesi - Galleria Il Cortile, Rome

2011 - 54th Venice Biennale, curated by Vittorio Sgarbi

2011 - "L'arte, il primo soffio di vita" - National Museum, Belgrade

2010 - "I love Music" curated by Barbara Martusciello e Giuseppe Stagnitta - room26, Rome

2010 - Doppia Collettiva - Galleria Hofficina d'Arte, Rome

2010 - "Domina" curated by Francesco Gallo - Galleria Orizzonti, Catania

2010 - "Rosso Italiano - Omaggio a Caravaggio" Palazzo Odescalchi, Bracciano

2010 - "Fabula in Art", Musei di San Salvatore in Lauro, Rome

2010 - "Caravaggio and Guitar" curated by Luce Monachesi - Galleria Il Cortile, Rome

2008 - "Natale 1223" - Galleria Comunale di Castelpizzuto, Isernia

Unintentionally but firmly anchored to Baumgarten’s primordial definition of aesthetics, I one day found myself admiring the splendors of nature with the supreme enthusiasm of he who faces an unquestionable Masterpiece.

One day I realized. One day, not sure when nor where – yet I clearly remember how, my myopic eyes perceived what was around me with a new and intense sense of gratitude.

I am not surprised to have explored abstraction before reality, rather than vice versa.  I guess I needed time to achieve capability to see, and to wait that the lasik intervention that corrected my sight produced effects on my photography.

In the meantime, while in constant and hectic movement, desire was pleased by ephemeral instants.  Ephemeral that could still be turned into long-lived.

I had never thought of it this way. This is maybe why I decided to capture that blink of an eye (that heart beat), attempting to also – and mainly – trap its emotion. Defer the moment prolonging its pleasure.

No secrets really: beauty is there, for everyone to see. Like trees, a mighty, powerful army, deeply rooted and yet always fleeing towards the sky in a synchronous growth melody; majestic and sinister in winter, tender and vibrant to spring’s lively breezes. Nature makes herself fair in every corner of the world; and by leaving permanent signs of her monumental existence she makes it paradise.

My story of a moment, an attempted poem. When I am at loss for words, drawing with light comes to my aid; photography, sharp pencil of dreamers’ inconsistent memory.

Whether on sensor or film, on this I write my ekphrasis. Undisputed muse of mine is Nature, unrivalled and timeless beauty, unquestionable.

And the contradiction: going back in time to that instant before the shutter’s click and bring it back to life, denying with shadows what immortalized with light. A challenge of photography statics, my oneiric kinetics.

Teresa Emanuele