Nicola Carignani

Fashion, Portrait, Sports
Milano

As a teenager, NICOLA CARIGNANI got rescued by the hard-core punk scene from an apparently bourgeois, middle-class upbringing. He started meeting people from different walks of life and got into more interesting circles, like skateparks and snowboard spots. In those years his father, an atheist communist engineer became a practising Hare Krishna. Still underage at that time, Nicola discovers the wonders of British magazine publishing. One day he finds himself looking at The Face and had a glimpse of what he would like to become as an adult. On the front cover the singer of Prodigy was posing with a hideous grimace on his face: it’s shocking, some photographers not only portray people, but they help them bringing terrible truths up to light. During the years studying photography he draws closer to Contemporary Art. He shows some of his first works in several exhibitions and he meets his future business partner Ivan. Together they founded Boiler Magazine, first online and then on paper. Nicola was Art Director with Macs Iotti. Everything run smoothly for three or four years until perhaps due to genetic causes, a sudden urge for a mystical experience struck him. Nicola decided to leave and meditate at a Buddhist monastery in Ceylon and he then arrived in India at the Osho commune, where he stayed much longer than expected. Coming back in Italy to work as a photographer needed a new sparkle, which he found in experimentation. Fashion, portraiture and sport culture all blend in into the mix that defines the unique style of his images, all containing the same dose of cheekiness, elegancy, irony and wildness. Open to collaborating with other artists who share the same eclectic vision, he yielded into his passion for filming. He recently started to direct music videos and small experimental projects. He has never stopped having fun.

Languages: English