BIOGRAPHY

Born in Poland, the Italian-Polish artist Gilberto Giardini was introduced to the world of theatre and opera as a child by his mother, an international opera singer. His early encounters with artists, musicians and other creative professionals marked the beginning of his love for art and theatre. This led to his first costumes at the age of sixteen for a gala evening of Polish ballet greats at the State Opera in Wroclaw. After graduating from high school and an inspiring 1-year stay in Paris, Giardini studied at the "Accademia di Belle Arti” in Rome and graduated with distinction in 1989. Stage productions in Italy and Poland as well as film productions at the renowned "Cinecittà" in Rome gave him valuable experience already during his studies.

A position as stage and costume assistant at the Bremen Theatre in 1990 opened the door for him to work with international artists from opera, theatre and dance theatre (Gabriele Lavia, Hubert Monloup, Tobias Richter, Johann Kresnik, among others). In 1992 Giardini began his freelance career as a stage and costume designer, initially as an assistant, then with his own productions and designs.

From ballet to operetta and opera, he has designed sets and costumes for various theatres and opera houses in Germany, Poland, France, Austria, Japan and Estonia. 

His mastery of five languages (Italian, German, Polish, French and English) is of great benefit to him, both in his analysis of the various works in their original languages and in his work with various international artists.

However, Giardini's artistic activities go beyond theatre and opera and also include photography, painting and illustration. His paintings, illustrations, and collages have been shown in several group and solo exhibitions in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, England, USA and Canada. Some of his works are part of private collections and represented in book publications.

Since 2001 he has also worked as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer . For fifteen years he worked in the advertising industry (primarily perfume), where he realised and managed many different projects, ranging from retouching, image editing and the creation of key visuals and other graphic print media, to the design of packaging and various POS elements, to the development of concepts for incentive and promotional events.

He is currently also increasingly active with graphics and illustration in publishing and, since 2019, in art photography. Giardini came to photography initially as a photo model after numerous collaborations with different photographers and has since been intensively creative and productive himself in this field as well. As in painting, his preferred motif is the human being, the portrait and the artistic nude. He is particularly interested in the different worlds of the human soul, his portraits and male nudes - nude portraits to be precise - are full of deep expressions and intensity. He calls his works photo visions - as he considers them more than photos.