Biography
Stefano Favaretto was born in Merano in 1969. His passion for photography led him right from the age of 15 to study photographic techniques and experiment with them. After his studies in human sciences, he worked for many years as a psychologist and a psychotherapist, what certainly contributed to shape his photographic style and influenced his inclination to depict human emotions on his pictures. His art aims at capturing the intimate, spiritual essence of subjects , in order to stimulate the observer to reflect and get in touch with his own emotional life. Over the years he moved from the emotional figurative style of the beginning to a more introspective concept about the interior human nature, which is focused on the representation of characters derived from narrations, myths and legends. The idea evolved slowly during many journeys around the world, but the turning point followed the meeting with a marble cave owner in Carrara in 2010, where he heard of the marble cave worker’s beliefs about the existence of little joking spirits living in the caves named “Cavatelli”. The works originated from this new creative process lead to his first personal exhibition “The spirits of marble” in the ducal palace of Massa on January 2014.
Since then Stefano Favaretto’s pictures were successfully displayed on many other national as well as international exhibitions and reviewed by Italian newspapers and art journals.
Another key event in his career was the collaboration with the curator of the 54. Biennale of Venice Giorgio Grasso, who selected the work “The devil without a hope” as main work of his exhibition in Milan
His passion for photography and human narratives and legends also spurred him to travel throughout the different continents. These journeys broadened his cultural knowledge and awareness, contributing to the evolution of his artistic work.
For Favaretto, a picture has to trigger emotions, and does this in a circular process that involves the observer as well as the work of art itself. It is the observer who projects his or her own meanings and interpretations onto the picture, making it his or her own. Only in this way a photograph can be considered successful. The introduction of aesthetic elements according to the approach based on the balance between opposing elements and forces and a vision of fine-art photography as a holistic form of artistic expression, and not just as something like paintings’ little sister, are among the artists’ main goals. Stefano Favaretto is without doubt a creative, original artist who transforms photography into a sublime form of art, dedicating the uttermost attention and sensitivity even to the smallest details.
