"Restless Spirit" Photograph

"I don't photograph bodies. I photograph the light that finds them."

Glauco Meneghelli (b. 1978) is a fine-art photographer based in São Paulo, Brazil. He trained in Fine Art Photography at Escola Panamericana de Arte de São Paulo (1998–2001) and also holds a degree in marketing from São Paulo. He now works full-time as an artist from his studio in São Paulo.

His central body of work is the human figure treated as sculpture. He works mostly in black and white and in low-key light, and he looks for the moment a gesture stops being a pose and becomes structure: the arch of a back, the weight of a shoulder, the shadow of a window grid falling across skin, the line where the body dissolves into darkness. Nudity is always implied rather than displayed. Every model is an adult. The work draws on the chiaroscuro of the Old Masters and on the modernist figure studies of Edward Weston and Ruth Bernhard. He photographs in the studio and on location: old gyms, bars, bedrooms, gardens and the city itself.

Alongside the figure, he keeps a quieter colour and architectural practice. It includes glass, concrete, timber and water on the Brazilian coast and in São Paulo, seen with the same discipline of line, rhythm and a single source of light.

Each photograph is conceived as an object made to hold a wall. Originals are released as one-of-a-kind pieces (1/1), printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag at 40 × 60 in. Each is signed and numbered by hand and comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist and sealed in gold.

His work was published in LFI (Leica Fotografie International) in 2008. His photographs have been recognised by 500px (Editor's Choice, 2016) and Flickr (Editor's Choice, 2015). They have won contests on Ishootit (2015, 2019) and Kolor Panobook (2016), and have also appeared in Digital Photographer (UK), Inspired Eye (USA) and Revista Paredro (Mexico). He is an Editor's Pick on Artmajeur. He is the author of the photobook series "This Is" (This is Peru!, This is Street Photography! and This is Macro Photography – Flowers, 2016), published in hardcover by Blurb and available on Amazon.