Bettoni’s exceptionally beautiful photographic studies explore the artist’s obsession with life in Tokyo, particularly the paradox of one of the world’s biggest and busiest cities having a centre that is empty and quiet. In his ‘Tokyo Lights’ series, the entire city turns around this central site, which is both forbidden and indifferent to the mass of Tokyo’s population, and contains a royal residence concealed beneath foliage and protected by moats. Bettoni uses Tokyo taxi signs, the blurred lights of speeding cars, and lightbox constructions, to convey the sense of a frenetic urban pace that is both apart and inseparable from its traditional core. Dramatic and compelling, this work was discribed by art critic Guy Brett as: ‘Beautiful: calm amid chaos.’
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Marco Bettoni is a Camberwell MA graduate who, over the past few years, has exhibited at Galleria Casati, Bergamo, Riverside Studios, and Platform London; as well as at Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Galleria Elvira Carreras in Madrid, Dieci.due(10.2!) Gallery, Milan and Galerie Artcurial, Paris. The artist’s work is now in the British collection at Matrix Chambers, alongside work by Julian Opie and Cornelia Parker. The Tate Gallery has also recognised Bettoni’s practise and his catalogue is now available as a reference in their archives. A series of Marco’s ‘Tokyo Lights’ is also in the Virgin Atlantic collection.