FORMENTO & FORMENTO
BJ and Richeille Formento called their creative duo Formento + Formento. BJ was born in Hawaii, and Richeille, in London. In 1999, BJ moved to New York, where he studied with Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, and Arnold Newman. Richeille graduated from the prestigious Central St. Martins College of Art before working as an art director in the fashion industry. In 2005, BJ and Richeille met while working together on a job in Miami. They fell in love and got married in New York City three months later. The duo won recognition for their romantic and sensually staged photographs, where the line between fiction and reality, clarity and ambiguity is blurred. In the Japanese style, they combine passion for photography and for each other. Their artworks resemble a serial film, where glamorous models from the world of haute couture take part in a scene, surrounded by premium lighting in perfect locations. In 2012, the American edition of Vogue gave Formento + Formento first place in its New Exposure contest. Since then, their works have conquered the world. They are now in the permanent collection of the International Center of Photography in New York and the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Miami, as well as the famous Fahey Klein Gallery in Los Angeles and Taylor Graham in New York. The couple also directs films, having made their debut with ‘The Voyage’ at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016.
“NANA XXIV, TOKYO, JAPAN, 2013”
80X120 CM ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINT EDITION 1/12 PRINTED 2018 SIGNED ON LABEL BY THE AUTHORS IN PENCIL
This photograph is one of the most vivid in the ‘Japan Diaries’ series. Here, the significant influence of Japanese arts and cinema on the artists is quite evident. In this series they are professional tourists creating new art based on traditional geisha images, turning them into pop fashion. Formento + Formento found the fragile balance between the austere asceticism of temples and the neon lights of shopping areas, the tranquility of zen gardens and the art of kinbaku. The shot of a geisha in a taxi is something strange and mysterious. ‘We wanted to capture the distinctive aspects of Japanese culture before the influence of modernity reduces it to the point of being unrecognizable,’ Richeille says. The geisha’s face is hidden intentionally so that viewers can come up with their own plot and history behind the photograph. © Formento+Formento