Nicolò Cecchella: Photography, Light, and the Archetype of Representation

Nicolò Cecchella (b. 1985) lives between Poviglio, a small town in the Reggio Emilia lowlands, and Rome. He began photographing rural rituals as a teenager, later studying literature at university. Photography became his primary artistic language, evolving from narrative to a focus on the nature of representation itself. His series "Phosphora" features tree trunks bandaged with gauze painted with pure phosphorus, photographed at night with a long exposure, making the bandages glow green. This work explores the materiality of photography and light, seeking a convergence between real landscape and total abstraction. Another series depicts ancient mutilated sculptures photographed in Roman museums, examining what remains of representation. Cecchella also creates terracotta sculptures, "Volto Terra," casts of his own face, with one internally painted with platinum, referencing photography. He describes the cast as an index, a direct contact with reality without authorial mediation. He has experimented with the 19th-century collodion process, where the image is fixed yet mutable with changing light. Cecchella's work is driven by a search for truth beyond classical forms. He will soon publish poems in a French anthology of contemporary Italian poetry titled "Scardinate matrici del sole," exploring themes of light, dawn, and the body. The interview was conducted by Angela Madesani with Silvia Gazzola, published in Artribune Magazine #39.