Artist Statement and CV

Luca Ortis is a London-based visual artist working with experimental photography, with a background in traditional Japanese tattooing. His practice is influenced by Japanese folklore, pictorialism, and Chinese landscape painting. He sees photography as a way to honour and connect with nature. These visual traditions inform a way of seeing that favours suggestion over assertion, where ambiguity is held with intention. Surfaces remain open, gestures incomplete—leaving space for memory, uncertainty, and the viewer’s own encounter. Each image carries a sense of quiet repair: not the restoration of what’s lost, but the recognition of what remains. Using handmade paper, botanical toners, and alternative darkroom techniques, he transforms photographs into tactile, imperfect artefacts shaped by chance and material interaction. Exhibitions and Awards: Winner first prize BBA Photography Prize 2025 BBA Gallery Berlin May 23rd - 1st June 2025 Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair Woolwich Arsenal London November 14-18 2024 Symbiosis 2 - London Alternative Photography Collective Four Corners Gallery, Bethnal Green London May 15-18 2024 Publications: ArtDoc Magazine Issue 2, 2025 The Meditative Lens