Gisella Sorrentino (b. Genoa,Italy 1978) is a photographer represented by Gaze Photography LLC: a New York based Photo Studio. Gaze Photography is a Photo Studio active in New York and in Rome (Italy) whose mission is to explore different aspect of Photography through the eyes of women photographers.

Gisella has studied at the International Center of Photography (New York

City, 2005) and at Scuola Romana di Fotografia (Rome, 2006). She also

interned several years as a teacher's assistant and darkroom assistant at International Center of Photography.

Having studied dance since she was a child, it was very natural for her to start to document performers and dancers inside and outside the dance and music scene. Through this physical experience, the movement and the rhythm became a language to express her self photographically. In her series Self Portraits & Bodies in Space the motion of the body captured in time and space becomes an instrument to express her feelings and her relation with the outside world.

Gisella exhibited her first solo show Pittura in Movimento in the main

hallway of the theatre Teatro Sistina as well as at the Ta Matete

Gallery (Rome, 2004). She has exhibited her Self Portraits & Bodies in Space in different group exhibitions such as: NordArt 2011 , the largest exhibition in Europe, at Kunst in der Carlshutte (Budelsdorf, Germany 2011), Family Show at La Mama La Galleria , Instant Book Event: Italian Artists in New York at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (Brooklyn, 2009), Blow Up at Bromfield Gallery (Boston, 2008), Her Humanity at Casa Frela

Gallery (New York City, 2007) and Work in Progress at

Scuola Romana di Fotografia (Rome, 2006).

Her passion also lies in photographing the underground and mainstream

art scene in Europe and New York City. Her artist portraits have

been published for various art/music magazines ( Next Exit, Kult Magazine, Joy Quarterly, InsideArt, Kaleidoskope Magazine, Expression ) and for the Italian American newspaper America Ogg i.

Gisella Sorrentino has, along with Garon Peterson, created Gelato! Art Salon, a collective of international artists based in Brooklyn in 2008. Since 2009 she has been showing and curating Gelato! Photo Slide Show, a screening of selected works by international and emerging photographers edited with sound, music and text in various art spaces and galleries such us: s.t. foto galleria libreria (Rome, 2010), Brooklyn Movies Lab (Brooklyn, 2010), 00153 Art Space (Rome, 2009) and Lab 24/7 (Brooklyn, 2009).

Articles

Expression

I Fotografi della Danza

(Original Text in Italian)

Behind the scene

The dance Photographers

GISELLA SORRENTINO AT THE LIMON SCHOOL by Robera Bezzi

August 2010

The project of a young Italian photographer in New York.

She’s Italian but she lives in New York, the young photographer originally from Genoa Gisella Sorrentino (32 years old), studied at the International Center of Photography in New York and at the Scuola Romana di Fotografia. “Having studied dance since I was young”-she explains- “it was very natural to start to document dancers and performers inside and outside the stage. Through this ‘physical’ experience, the movement and the rhythm became a language to express my self in photography”.

Lately she has been working on a photo project about modern dance in New York and she shot at the Peridance Capezio Center, well known as the base of the Limon School, directed by Alan Danielson. She shot the dancers during the classes, emphasizing the musicality and the rhythm instead of the shape of the movement. The photos are taken together with environmental portraits of prominent teachers and choreographers in the school.

America Oggi la ny di gisella crop.jpg

Gisella's New York

Oggi 7-Magazine

January 18 2009

by Silvia Forni

(Text Translated from Italian)

PHOTOGRAPHY

Sorrentino is one of the many artists who have chosen Manhattan as an inspiration place.

Dance and darkroom to say “good bye” to biology studies.

“I’m a reflection photographing other reflection within reflection”. The American photographer Duane Michals’ words reflect the work of roman artist Gisella Sorrentino, who has been in Unites States for about three years and whose work is based mostly on self-portrait.

Sorrentino starts to explore photography at the age of 18. She was raised in an artist family. After she had graduated from biology studies, she took a photography diploma at the Scuola Romana di Fotografia in 2006. For the artist everything related with art, music or images is a natural process.

“I had a darkroom that I shared with friends and I had fun to explore different ways of printing. On the other side I was very connected to dance, it was part of me, a daily need. At one point dance and photography became one thing. I start to work photographing a friend performances. I’m very emotive and photography helps me to express better myself”.

Gisella starts to enter in contact with other artists in Italy and in the United States. The first work was in Rome with Fabiana Yvonne Lugli, dancer, performer and choreographer. After she had worked with her for a year, working as scene photographer for the famous Balletto di Roma, she decided to move to New York. In New York the artist community is more established and she starts to experiment more as a photographer. She conceives the ideas of self-portrait in B&W, and new contexts in color of the subway and of Brooklyn.

“New York helped me to understand better myself outside my family context. I was intern for the artist Vera Lutter, and at International Center of Photography for many years. New York helped me also to understand that biology wasn’t exactly my path. Even if being a freelance photographer wouldn’t mean being fnancially stable, it was the thing I wanted to do.”

Sorrentino has always been surrounded with artists. Her grandfather was a moviemaker, her grandmother a visual artist from Romania and her aunt, Graziella Scotese, is a visual artist who has been living in Mexico for 20 years focusing on murals and reinterpretation on Maya symbols.

One of the most important moments of her carrier was the birth of self-portrait to experience and explore herself. Through introspection she revolutionized herself totally. The self-portrait was a tool to show and understand her feelings to herself and to others.

This work experiences the relationship with the mirror (“Gaze”2006), the family, the society, up to the fusion with New York City, a city that better represents the opportunity to reinvent our selves (Flow, 2006).

“The feeling of alienation that we all have in a big city is very far from the familiar confidence that we can have at home. When I met my boyfriend Garon, I decided to start a work about relationship and at one point my photographs started to tell about being a man, a woman, one person. I explored many different kind of formats: 35mm, digital, 6x6. My favourite cameras are the medium format Holga and Yashica and the digital Canon 5d, which I carry all the times for my exploration trips. I have been inspired by Francesca Woodman and Maya Deren. I love the motion and the out of focus”.

In 2007 Gisella Sorrentino took part at “Her Humanity” show in a Gallery in Harlem. After the show the artist started a project about portraits, collaborating with other artists.