The journey of Paulo Renftle as an artist began at a very young age, following the teachings of his artist mother and experimenting with various disciplines including painting, engraving, up to sculpture, before dedicating himself to photography for a good part of his career.
His photographs with laser light seem to convey visions from a silent elsewhere, an archive of memories from a distant time.
Can you tell us what happens inside you when you start to create an image?
They are visions captured at the border of what we define as reality, where time ceases to exist. I try to remind myself of the beauty seen with closed eyes. The laser light I created with my father is coherent and collimated, but with specific reflections and refractions, a single wavelength. Pure, in a deep darkness, it manages to make the particles suspended in the atmosphere vibrate and the volumes of the body vibrate, emerging from my water of light.
Have you recently presented your first Artist’s Book, a book-archive, can you tell us more about it?
The Libro Archivio Afterlife is a work designed to withstand the passage of time, with materials and solutions that guarantee at least four hundred years. It withstands extreme temperature fluctuations, from minus thirty to plus ninety degrees Celsius, handcrafted with a limited edition of only one hundred copies.
Contains over fifty photographic works created solely with laser light, alternated with cryptic messages, synthesis of thoughts and information about reality.
Your work has been presented in many prestigious places such as the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan, the LAC Museum and Villa Ciani in Lugano, in Basel at the Messeturm during ArtBasel 2024, up to the sculptures exhibited at Banca Investis. What can you tell us about the upcoming exhibitions in Venice and Taormina?
At the next two solo exhibitions in Venice, at Riva Home Gallery on May 24 and in Taormina at the Historical Archive on June 21, 2025, the Afterlife series will be presented in large format and there will be more sculptures, always my great passion.
Currently, Banca Investis is hosting my first two granite sculptures.
There is a constant element in your photographic works: the female presence, where does this choice come from?
The female body represents creative power and is the only element that emerges in the dimension where time ceases to exist. Light and dark, east and west, sacred and profane.
Recently, you have approached sculpture, working with very hard materials such as black granite.
What are you looking for in the confrontation with the material, and what kind of listening does the time of sculpture require?
Granite speaks softly, and if time had an opposite direction, I would say that sculptors bring to light what is inside the block, what the rock has already been: Art. The sculptor perhaps removes the excess. In the coming weeks, I will start with metal casting, experimenting with various alloys.
In a world where art seems to have to be increasingly rapid, visible, adaptable to social media, yours is a countercurrent pursuit. How do you experience this tension between visibility and depth?
I create in silence, in a sort of hypnosis. I dedicate all my time to experimentation. It is the task I have chosen in this cycle, in the great illusion.
As expert in digital marketing, Amelia began working in the fintech sector in 2014 after writing her thesis on Bitcoin technology. Previously author for several international crypto-related magazines and CMO at Eidoo. She is now the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Cryptonomist and Econique.
She is also a marketing teacher at Digital Coach in Milan and she published a book about NFTs for the Italian publishing house Mondadori, while she is also helping artists and company to entering in the sector. As advisor, Amelia is also involved in metaverse-related project such as The Nemesis and OVER.
