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196 Paolo Ventura is an Italian artist, regarded as a master of staged photography. Ventura was born in Milan, Italy, in 1968 as one of twins. His father was a celebrated children's book designer and would tell the family stories as they sat around the dinner table. His eccentric grandmother took the twins to see the circus and street performers. Ventura's twin brother, Andrea, is now a painter and illustrator and Ventura has said 'being the one with the least talent for drawing, I decided to become a photographer to avoid the mortifying confrontation with my family'. Ventura graduated from the Accademia de Belle Arti di Brera in 1991, having worked as a photographer's assistant whilst at college. As a photographer in Milan, the fashion industry presented a comfortable income. Having worked as a fashion photographer for ten years, shooting commissions and travelling, Ventura was bored by the industry and decided to pursue a career as a fine art photographer. In 2001 Ventura moved to Brooklyn, New York, and started making dioramas inside a closet. Working with objects found in the streets and at flea markets, he began building Lilliputian environments to photograph. Typically engineering narratives that unfold through a series of images, Ventura's photographs are rooted in a fantastical, historical past that reverberates with mystery and subterfuge. His first series, War Souvenir (2005), found inspiration in his grandmother's wartime memories. Having grown up surrounded by stories about the war, Ventura has described them as 'the soundtrack to [his] youth'. Working like an illusionist, Ventura undertakes a complex process to produce each of his images. 'I think of the image – mostly while walking during the day, or sitting in a café', he has explained, 'slowly, the image appears to me completely and in the tiniest detail.' Ventura then makes some sketches before going out to find materials to build the diorama. Having lit it with table lamps or ceiling lights, he takes Polaroids to carry around with him and evaluate before shooting the scene on a Pentax 6 x 7 camera. Ventura then sometimes paints his prints to enhance the otherworldly quality of the scenes. Set during the Nazi occupation of Italy, Ventura's series, The Automaton (2010), tells the story of an elderly Jewish watchmaker living in the Jewish ghetto in Venice. Old and lonely, the watchmaker builds an automaton called Nino to keep him company and act as a distraction against the likelihood of deportation to the 'final destination'. Exhibited at the Museo Fortuny, Venice, The Automaton is typical of Ventura's fascination with time and how it may be suspended through art. His work centres on the interpretation and manipulation of history, questioning the trust placed in memory and documentation. Related to this, he challenges the boundaries between artistic mediums and the reliance of history on the photographic image: 'I use photography because what people see in photographs they believe is real – even if they know it is a model. When you go to see a film you know it's a setup, but you cry, you get excited, you are deeply touched. People want to believe what they see on film.' Theatrically staged, Ventura's scenes are portals to a historically located but ambiguous past, whilst rich with invention and allusion. Ventura's work was featured at the Italian Pavilion of the 2011 Venice Biennale and has been collected by the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., and the Museo Palazzo Fortuny, Venice. Ventura lives and works in both New York and Italy. Paolo Ventura Born 1968