Encountering Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear marked the beginning of Ismael Lorenzo’s artistic journey. Fascinated by the painting, he made a pencil copy of it - an experience that awakened his desire to pursue art and eventually led him to apply to art school.
At a very young age, Ismael began studying painting at the School of Arts in his native village in Cuba. He later received a scholarship to continue his artistic education at the National Art Schools in Havana.
It was there that he was first introduced to another artistic world that would soon become a new passion: dance. He discovered in dance a medium of expressive freedom, capable of conveying the full spectrum of human emotions while transforming the body itself into a dynamic tableau, a powerful form of visual expression.
Being a professional dancer did not stop him from continuing explore painting and photography in parallel, deepening his engagement with both disciplines. Over time, however, his interest for photography grew strong and turned into his profession, his artistic focus remaining closely tied to the world he knew so intimately: the theatre.
Over the years, Ismael has come to consider all forms of artistic expression as part of an inseparable whole: a pencil tracing a line across paper, a body painting a movement in response to music, or the ephemeral moment captured by a camera and transformed into frozen eternity. Each is an impulse arising from our instinctive need to express ourselves.
Rooted in this philosophy, his background as a painter and a dancer has become an integral part of his distinctive and sensitive photographic language. His approach goes far beyond the surface of the image, seeking to understand and interpret his subjects from within and to translate that inner dimension into a visual experience for the viewer.
Ismael Lorenzo currently lives and works in Basel, Switzerland, where he collaborates with theatres and develops his personal artistic projects. He is specialized in performing arts photography and his photographic work has been exhibited in art galleries across Europe.