Born in Italy, Michele Castagnetti spent his formative years in Rome.   After discovering he had an inclination for design, he moved to Piacenza at age 15 and studied graphic design at the nearby Ateneo in Milan. At nineteen he came to New York to further his education. Four years later he received a Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Since then Michele has worked as an Art Director at a number of New York and Los Angeles advertising agencies. He's currently working on the art direction of movie posters, advertising campaigns, art exhibitions and films in Los Angeles.
Castagnetti's art and photography are regularly published in Rojo and Victim Magazine. It appeared in the Graphis, Best of Photography book and in the Italian book CMYK. He had a solo show at the Red House Gallery in Venice and participated in many group shows at the Applegate Gallery in Santa Monica and at The Farmani Gallery in 
Beverly Hills.

The ongoing series, Les Femmes Fatales represents a synthesis of the traditional and the modern. The experimental techniques used utilize both photography and painting. Pigment and polymer dyes and paints have been applied onto traditional chromogenic and gelatin silver 
photographic prints. Due to the permanence of such a process, each piece is created in one session. The result is a unique and spontaneous blend of combined medium