Yuri Catania was born in 1975 in Milan.
He graduated from the Art School and attended two years of Industrial Design at the Polytechnic.
Painting, drawing, and photography have always been his favorite arts.
He began his career as an illustrator of children's books but shortly thereafter, photography became the most important means of expression. He established himself as a fashion photographer in the commercial and editorial fields. He’s the co-founder of a photo production house in New York. He travels around the world for over 15 years dedicating himself to fashion as a photographer and video director. At the same time, the deepest photographer’s satisfactions and emotions come from his personal project called “NO FASHION PLACES” that is an inner path, an intimate research that catches hidden feelings among the particulars, a keen look that captures the great messages of small things, far from the refined luxury sparkle.
The turning point came when the curator Rene Julien Praz noticed his works and invited him to exhibit first at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and then, at the Galleries Perrotin. He moves to live in Switzerland where he seeks a more positive environment to focus on his art. In a few years, he’s the co-founder of CasaGalleria, an art gallery in Rovio, at the foot of Monte Generoso, in a wonderful natural environment where he lives and establishes his creative atelier.
Yuri Catania has never stopped to travel. Currently is on the road around the United States of America by an Airstream in the footsteps of Robert Frank's Americans journey and inspired by the readings of writers such as William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, Truman Capote and the recent Jessica Bruder of Nomadland. With the aim of photographing places, people, food, signs, streets, cities, landscapes, cars throughout the ages: Obama, Trump and today Biden to fix with realism the cross-section of a society in strong decay and devoured by consumerism. He published his first book “No Fashion Places of America” in 2016.
He is the author of the mix media artwork American Flags: Anthology One, Black Neon, Mc Porn and Videogame, interactive art works with large dimensions 3.50 meters x 1.76 meters. Each flag is a real installation that includes 90 framed pictures in 14cmx14cm size. The photographic themes are glimpses of everyday life, a denunciation of contrasts and reflections on the controversial and at times ironic lifestyle of American society.
In recent years, Catania went back to work with film photography through the use of the medium format. The manual development process thus becomes an integral part of the message who has in mind. Furthermore, his evolution leads him to use photography for more complex projects inspired by the street art like JR and the works of Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol. This is how new paths and form of language are born, which he constantly ``invades`` and ``dirties`` by the use of lettering. He uses computer graphics, or luminescent paints, acrylics, sprays or paper collages to create unique projects.
Writings slogans and/or messages today dominate his creative thinking and become the current expression of his works. Hence the series: Human Light Message, Hope for the Future, Neon Street and, My Pixel Life.
He is the author of the land art ``The Cats of Rovio`` which he created with the paste up technique involving the entire population of the town in an intergenerational project. The exhibition consists of over one hundred art installations whose protagonists are the Cats of Rovio with reference both to the inhabitants of the town who have been portrayed and to the felines that populate the historic center.
His mind is FULL OF BAD IDEAS 🤟