Luis Cobelo

Born in Acarigua, Venezuela, Luis Cobelo is a photographer whose practice developed between Venezuela and Spain. After an extensive career as an independent photojournalist—producing documentary projects across the Americas, Asia, and Europe and publishing in major magazines throughout Spain, Europe, and Latin America—his work now focuses on artistic creation through photobooks and exhibitions. His practice centers on Latin American culture, generating narratives from a personal perspective that transform the everyday into the unusual, the tragic into the humorous, and vice versa. Drawing inspiration from literature, popular culture, cinema, poetry, myths, traditions, and even gossip, Cobelo employs imaginative, magical, and fantastical realities to construct parallel worlds aligned with his own sensibilities. In 2021, he founded La Chancleta Voladora (The Flying Flip Flop), a platform created in response to the limited visibility of photographers from Latin America and the Caribbean in international art and photography book fairs. The initiative supports photographers by providing resources to produce and promote photobooks while maintaining full creative and editorial independence, fostering a collective Latin American voice that resonates globally.