Nino Bartolo is a hair stylist by profession and a fashion photographer by passion. Born and raised in Macau, he is of Portuguese descent. He has worked for a number of  renowned international brands, including the Sassoon Academy and hair education company Allilon in London, and has served as Creative Director at the Debut Hair Academy & Salon in Shanghai. In 2017, he established Code 17, a hairdressing and photography education brand.

Taipa Village Cultural Association has invited this creative spirit to share his passion and professional skills with Macau audience. Hairstyling is a particularly noteworthy artistic profession within the fashion industry. Each hairstyle can be seen as an ephemeral sculpture that enhances the personality of its wearer, making photography a crucial means of immortalising it.

Nino Bartolo

Hair Stylist, Fashion Photographer

Born and raised in Macau, and of Portuguese descent, Nino has enjoyed an impressive hairdressing career, in the course of which he has won a number of competitions in Asia.

He spent a year working in Stockholm before moving to London to join the renowned Sassoon Academy for five years, following which he spent four years at hair education company Allilon. During this period, he further honed his skills in the role of Creative Stylist and Educational Director, also working for a number of international magazines and collaborating on fashion video advertisements.

Between 2013 and 2017, he worked as Creative Director at the Debut Hair Academy & Salon in Shanghai. In 2017, he founded Code 17, a hairdressing and photography education brand.

He has pursued his passion for photography for the past nine years, and some of his images have garnered international online photography awards including “Picture of the Year 2011/12 “ in The Exposure Award Photo Competition, while other works have been published by Italian Vogue. He also photographed celebrities including actor Simon Callow, musician Jon Shawn and rock duo Soler.

Curator’s Statement 

Bartolo’s exhibition can be seen as the inception of a new series of exhibitions at Taipa Village Living Space that attempt to join industry and artistry, showcasing talented individuals who bring together in unison professional skills and passion for the arts. In this particular case, both paths (hairstyling and photography) fortunately crossed at some point in time and place and were developed simultaneously over the years, resulting in a body of work conveyed through the medium of fashion photography.

Many of the photographs presented in this exhibition are a mixture of Bartolo’s talent as a photographer and hairstylist. Added to that combination of skillsets are the production talents needed in fashion photography—make-up, lighting, staging, costume design, accessorising, recruiting models, and the work of staff behind the scenes coming together to make an ethereal photograph come to life, shining with vibrant colours, mood, pose and strong visuals.

Modesty aside, we recognize that rare encounters with certain individuals propel great conversations combined with creative thinking. Such is the case with Bartolo who is driven by ideas and is not bound to the enclosure of daily routines. Although he is a man of few words, he is a hands-on person who thrives in manipulating untamed human hair. For this special occasion of his first solo exhibition, he is bringing something new and innovative to the gallery: a couple of mannequin busts on which he sculpts hair adorned with accessories, thus producing permanent hairstyles.

João Ó