RICHEILLE & BJ Formento
Under the name Formento + Formento, Richeille Formento styles and art directs, while BJ Formento lights and photographs. The images are a mutual portrait - an exchange in which the artist’s individualities blur, leaving traces on each other. Together the duo has an enthralling ability to absorb the spirit of a time and place, creating cinematic photographs, with a vision that references the past but remains contemporary and highly original. To date, they have produced eight bodies of work, and are currently working on their new series "36". In winter of 2018 they returned to Japan, focused on channeling the artist Hokusai and asked the question of what Mt. Fuji means to them.
"We consider Japan our spirit haven and are always yearning to come back and go deeper in our exploration of the people and the landscape. This new work moved us out of the city of Tokyo and into the countryside. Here we wanted to live under the ever changing appearance of Mt. Fuji and experience its burning energy, creating an ambiguous narrative with our women as they played out an imagined life under the strength of the mountain and beyond the edge of the frame."
BJ Formento was born in Hawaii and grew up in the Philippines. After attending Academy of Arts University San Francisco, BJ moved to New York training his eye by working with esteemed photographers such as Richard Avedon, Duane Michals, MaryEllen Mark and Annie Leibovitz.
London born Richeille Formento graduated with honors from Central St. Martins College of Art before working as an art director and designer. In 2005, BJ and Richeille met while working together on a job in South Beach, Miami. They admit to love at first sight, and were married in New York City three months later. Their work has been exhibited worldwide and is in permanent collections of International Center of Photography, Moscow Museum of Arts, Currier Museum, Boca Raton Museum, Bruce Museum, Lewben Museum and Musee Des Art Decoratif Paris. They have published “Circumstance: America Down on Bruised Knees” by YK Books (2012) as well a short film “The Voyage” shown at Cannes Film Festival 2016.
BJ and Richeille live and work in Connecticut.