Within the international artistic animation scene, Leonardo Carrano’s work turns out to be an emblematic observational study of the contemporary techniques employed in abstract animation, which blend craft-base knowledge with computerized techniques. In the artistic path of the author, the dialectic between tradition and innovation is interpreted through an aesthetic approach to contamination, where theories and artistic avant-garde methods coexist with the language of computer technology.
After completing his studies at the Fine Arts Academy in Rome, Carrano starts his activity as a painter and graphic designer, following in the footsteps of his masters: the painter Gianpaolo Berto, the writer and intellectual Aldo Braibanti and the artist Nato Frascà.
The early ‘90s mark the final transition to the experimental animation cinema. In this decade, Carrano makes a dozen of very brief abstract films and he finishes Pentesilea (1996) a work inspired by Kleist’s textbook by the same name and dedicated to the Italian activist Silvia Baraldini. The principles of abstraction, the strong relation with musical elements, the use of iconographic and conceptual references to esoteric culture and experimentation of unusual animation techniques, are the predominant characteristics of these first works which will inevitably affect his future works. .
The circle and the threshold (1999) and Noiselevel (2002) are films which very openly point out a new line of research, mainly technological. In these two works Carrano uses computerized animation made with a 3D scanner.
The comparison with the past comes back in Aeterna (2012): his most ambitious project which stemmed from a long confrontation with Mozart’s Requiem in D minor K 626. For each of the 14 musical movements, Carrano makes some video- animation, each shot by using a specific technique, each created with the collaboration of a different animator or video artist. This work marks his artistic path, where thematic and stylistic characteristics finally achieve harmonious proportions and a total maturity. In recent years the author produced Jazz for a massacre (2014), directed together with Giuseppe Spina, a film made with paintings, engravings and the etching of 35 mm film. In this work graphic sign and Marco Colonna’s contemporary jazz music seem to perfectly merge. Macula (2017) is another work he co-directs with Giuseppe Spina, the soundtrack by Ennio Morricone and the voice of Antonio Rezza. In 2018 Carrano produced Medea together with Alain Parroni. In these two last films he employs a new animation technique, testing the encaustic technique directly on film.
Carrano’s work has been broadcast on important TV channels- Rai (Blob cartoon and After-hours) and Mediaset (The Angel of which he curated virtual sets in animation) – and they were exhibited and screened at important film and art festivals in Italy ( Venice Film Festival, Rome Film Festival, Pesaro New Film Festival, Invideo Milan, Naples, Palermo) and abroad ( Locarno Festival, Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Zagreb, Montreal, Paris, Casablanca, Shanghai, Beijing).
To create his works Carrano has collaborated with well-known and esteemed composers such as: Sylvano Bussotti, Giorgio Battistelli, Ennio and Andrea Morricone, Marco Colonna, Massimo Carrano.
