Bio

Martino Lombezzi was born in Genoa in 1977 and grew up in Milan. In 1996 he moved to Bologna, where he graduated in Contemporary History in 2003. While studying at university, he started working as an assistant to several photographers specialised in fashion, interiors, portraits and still life.

After graduation he was awarded a scholarship for a two-month field research in Bosnia Herzegovina, where he continued his studies on the International Tribunal for former Yugoslavia. In that occasion, he also realised a photographic project that became the subject of a solo exhibition shown in Sarajevo and Banja Luka.  Back in Italy, photography became his only occupation.

His main interest is documentary photography, but he also takes architecture and portrait photographs. He is currently involved in a long-term project about the remains of World War II in Emilia Romagna.

His pictures were published on many Italian magazines, such as Io Donna, D La Repubblica delle donne, Geo, Internazionale, L’Espresso, Ventiquattro, Corriere della Sera Magazine, Panorama, Vanity Fair, Grazia, Max.

He is represented by Contrasto since 2005.

Statement

I have spare origins from a number of regions in Italy, but Liguria is where I was born. Even if I never lived there, the brightest moments of my childhood are tied to the mountains near Savona, Varazze’s beach, the alley where my grandparents ran a shop for years. Our family house is there. It’s the place where I look into myself, where I can stay alone if I want.

I love the special relationship between the things and the places in this part of Italy, a periphery of our country: you always feel pushed to the sea by the mountains behind you, between them the remnants of the industrial past share the room with hidden villages and forgotten rivers. Roads are never straight, and when you turn a bend you always have the feeling of discovering something.