Alexandre

Alexandre Cortinhas is born in Corunha in 1982. He studied Art Photography at the Pablo Picasso School of Art and Design in his hometown, from which he graduated in 2005.
His first photographs of his time as a student are taken mostly in B / W and analog format.

These were photos in which experimentation was more important than technique. In doing so he experiments with different elements such as the aesthetics and the musicality of the composition. Poetry out of the camera, a quest for the beauty and the lyricism in everyday things , no matter how orderly or how chaotic they might appear to be as the image comes timely to capture it, whilst allowing the observer add their subjective view.

His final year project was a tribute to his father, suffering from ALS, and to all those people who suffer any kind of pain: physical, mental or indescribable. Photographs are dark, hard and simple at the same time. Narrative scenes are loaded with hardness, with a small opening which releases energy, light, love and solidarity.

Then he extends his training as a Senior Producer (HND.Higher National Diploma) in the School of Communication & Audio CEV Barcelona. At the same time he participates in a workshop on Video-Art and Video-Clip.

At this stage in Barcelona, ​​Alex works along with different media artists, taking pictures, recording films and concerts. It's time to experiment.

Subsequently, he went on to work in digital format. He experiences the composition of new imaginaries that are in a band where dream and reality form a simultaneous continuum. These imaginaries are made using recycled old analog images, using the technique of collage or overlay of images or elements. This technique allows you develop your perception of the world and the elements that compose it.

After college he returns to his native Galicia, working as a freelance photographer for the entertainment company "Animatium" while still working on his photo projects.

At the time he receives a job offer for an internship, as camera operator for TV channel Tele 5 in Madrid, doing the news coverage.

This television experience gets prolonged for a few months and although this period would be regarded positively the time came when, as Alex says "I decided that photography was my means of expression, For me, working with video in these circumstances was to use a different medium, but eventually the lack of creative and artistic perspective, something difficult to accept in a news coverage, determined my decision to devote to what really fulfilled me: creative photography.”

After his stay in Madrid returns home to Galicia, where he continues working with Animatium. In 2008 he becomes runner-up of the prestigious Xosé Manuel Eiris Award.

In 2009 Alex moved to London, where he currently lives and works, having worked sporadically with the Centre for Reconciliation and Peace "St Ethelburga's ', the magazine “The New Internacionalist" and the agency "Spotlight”.

Alex’s works reflect his constant search for the fleeting experience that remains in our sense as well as the incessant inquiry, the quest for continuous learning and thirst of “meaningful” knowledge; his London works also show a newish development in his photography, in which technique becomes increasingly more important. His images show times and places belonging to lost memories, steeped in history, melancholy and poetry. They allude to a “possibly impossible” world, described by way of visual poetry. It shows the passage of time, the transient worlds, one seemingly lost but full of charm and a sense of eternity and another one which is perceived as bright and modern but comes across untidily. It shows the chaos of the new world, not knowing where to set the focus of our present reality, that of our environment and our habitat. This chaos strangely conveys tranquility and calm; it is accepted as something even paradoxically beautiful. The old world, that fertile and natural habitat, that fairly democratic space melts under the new artificial world and its aesthetics, so that often we confuse reality with perception, bringing into question our real selves, our visual referrals, our vanishing memories, our very identity.

Alexandre begins to see his work rewarded in recent years, two consecutive years was invited to the Portfolio Review at the Voies Off Festival Photographic in Arles (France). In 2010 he was finalist in the photographic competition, MAKEHISTORY, organized by the brand "Lee". His photographs were part of an exhibition at the Foro Boario in Modena (Italy), and were subsequently published in a photo-book.

In 2011 he was also a finalist in the Story Teller Awards, First Prize in Environmental Category, he also got an honourable mention in the Abstract Photography Category of the Pollux Awards, both organized by the WPGA (World Photography Gala Awards). These works were recently exhibited along with those of fellow photographers at The Palais de Glace in Buenos Aires as part of the exhibition organized by the WPGA.

As well he has exhibited his recent work at The Crypt for the London Photo Festival and at the Rich Mix for the Photomonth - East London Photography Festival.