About me​

Stefano Balma was born in Turin in 1988 and lives in Genoa, where his studio is located.

From an early age, he showed a deep curiosity and passion for art, inspired by his father, a self-taught painter, and his mother, a lover of opera and literature. He began drawing and painting at a young age.

In the early years of his artistic career, he devoted himself to music and experimented with photography during numerous trips, until photography became his chosen form of expression, blending creative artistry with a connection to nature.

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To refine his photographic technique, he attended workshops led by photographer Niccolò Talenti and participated in photography trips organized by Gabriele Lorenzini of FotoCorsi, with whom he began collaborating in 2023.

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He has received numerous accolades in various photography competitions, including an Honorable Mention in 2022 at the Tokyo International Foto Awards and The International Photography Awards. In the same year, he ranked in the top 35 of the 35AWARDS in the landscape category. In 2023, as a professional photographer, he won second place at the Fine Art Photography Awards and third prize at Le Prix de la Photographie de Paris.

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In 2022, Stefano Balma transformed his passion for photography into a professional career, dedicated to a constantly evolving and personal interpretation of imagery, through ongoing thematic, technical, and poetic exploration.

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Artistist statement

Impermanence and the continuous transformation of the natural world lie at the heart of Stefano Balma's photographic research, which explores these themes through

interconnected projects, moving between external observation and inner reflection.

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In his first three series, he marks the passage of time through three temporal scales.

In "Shapes of Earth", millennia-sculpted landscapes reveal the primordial interaction between earth, fire, water, and air. In "Shapes of Ice", he captures the cyclical growth and melting of glaciers, akin to a rhythmic breath. Meanwhile, "Shapes of Water" portrays the movement of water as a reflection of change in the fleeting moments of time.

This observation of natural changes leads him to a more intimate

reflection and inner observation.

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This journey from the external to the internal finds its expression in projects dedicated to trees and forests.

In "Sati Vana", nature and psyche intertwine in a profound dialogue where the Beigua forest becomes a mirror of the mind and its continuous flow of emotions and states of being.

In "Entities", trees captured across different continents share sinuous, anthropomorphic forms that symbolize the passionate side of nature.

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"As a Mirage" completes this journey, blending external observation and existential reflection.

In the Namibian desert, the contrast between the dead trees of Deadvlei and the creatures that survive in the harsh desert conditions becomes a metaphor for the delicate balance between life and death, the ultimate synthesis of the impermanence that permeates all of the artist’s work.

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Through these projects, seemingly different yet intimately connected, Balma reveals a new perspective: continuous change is not only a natural phenomenon to be observed but a key to understanding both the external and internal manifestations of existence.

In all these images, there is no human presence, which Balma associates with the noise and distraction of overthinking.

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​"The photographic art of Stefano Balma is a long journey; from images of nature, powerful and harmonious in its continuous flow of life, which, like a tuning fork, helps man re-tune himself, to images of the forest transforming, through dynamic and disorienting shots, into an extraordinary vision that offers the possibility to look beyond the surface and discover the vastness of our soul."

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Text by Alessandra Cusinato, Art Historian