Mimesis

Find out more:

Website: www.marynabrodovska.tilda.ws

Portrait of an Invisible Man 

(Title: Paul Auster)  

A photograph of an empty street, taken from the window of a living room, was the only clue to find out where his dying father used to live. 

In the hope of  discovering more about his father’s whereabouts, Diederik Spaargaren wandered around the streets of Toulouse at night, a city strangely unknown to him. 

They had not seen each other for more than 25 years. His father was trapped in his own mind and slowly disappeared into own world. 

It proved impossible to escape from there. Eventually he became invisible to his children, friends, family and probably also to himself. 

Find out more: 

Website: www.diederikspaargaren.nl

Instagram: @diederik_spaargaren

Intimate Paths 

Returning to my hometown, I had to face various aspects of the past. I was back in the countryside, spending time in my “secret” places, the ones which deep in my recollection were full of scents, sounds, and beloved creatures. A cathartic re-exploration of my beautiful surroundings. Again. 

Only then, I realised I was attracted by the times when everything was serene and somehow strange. Seduced by total darkness, obsessed with the forms that light can reveal, I started creating a world between reality and fiction, dreams and nightmares, between past and present. 

Through distortion, there comes clarity and through abandonment, I try to share the feeling of being there, seeing and experiencing my intimate paths.

Find out more:

Website: www.kosmasiliadis.com

Instagram:@kosmasiliadis

 

 

Forty Plus

‘Forty Plus’ is a body of work that documents and conceptualises feminine sensuality above forty years old. Paradoxically, in Western society, the more a woman grows old and confident, the more she disappears in any kind of representation. While being in full possession of their body and its capacities, liberated from their upbringing and from the expectations of a patriarchal society, forty plus women remain too often hidden, forgotten, as if invisible.

‘Forty Plus’ is a delicate visual journey through Carole Rey’s intimate wardrobe mixed with botanical elements as a metaphorical representation of the feminine gaze.

This series is an ode to femininity and sensuality, an invitation to see and embrace beauty in all its manifestations and imperfection, a lullaby to sing the incredible feeling of freedom and inner power that we reach in what can be considered  middle-life.

Find out more: 

Website: www.realitybeautycapturer.com

Instagram: @carole_reyphotography

Tender Kisses

It was 2012. 

My wife and I were standing at a souvenir shop somewhere in Vienna. Everything around us was decorated with Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss”.  

Lighters, umbrellas, plates, mugs, socks, handkerchiefs, countless unnecessary things, decorated with the image of lovers kissing on the edge of the abyss. So… drama somehow turned into a tragedy, we thought. 

And the first thing I did when I returned home was reach out to the decorators and order an old, handmade patchwork blanket with reference to the picture. Thus began a project that I have been working on for 10 years. 

The lovers, who are the central event of the ‘play’, fit into the proposed circumstances, which determine the nature of the scene.  

It so happened, and I am not to blame, that the heroes began their journey, comfortably hiding from the outside world under a shabby blanket, and ending up, for now, in Ukrainian basements under the bombing of Russian missiles. 

Of course, all this is staged, a theatre, but the events, era, time and place of the action, along with the life conditions of the characters, are genuine, slightly embellished by the author- that is, by me.

Find out more: 

Website: www.kezzyn.com

Instagram: @andreykezzyn

Made in China

The phrase ‘Made in China’ is synonymous with cheap mass production, the reduction of national manufacturing, and, now, Trump’s Chinese virus outbursts. I have composed these still lifes using only items Made in China. 

These are cheaply manufactured goods, made in factories and imported in bulk by the truckload – bought in the Euro shop, but presented as rich gilded trophies: the perishable delicacies and unique objects of luxury, typically showcased in traditional 16th Century Dutch and Flemish genre paintings.

In the past, these highly detailed ‘Vanitas’ still life paintings captured the most valuable possessions. These Dutch Still Lifes were regarded as parables of time, showing rotting fruit and flowers and presenting moral lessons about vanity, the pursuit of worldly goods, and the certainty of death. But my still lifes do not age, they are plastic: stuffed animals, fake flowers, and foods. They question contemporary values placed on popular goods, as well as the economy of overseas manufacture and import.

Apart from the fact that all our lives were brought to a standstill by the coronavirus, the series asks us to consider changes in the economic and geopolitical state of our consumer culture and our ongoing relationship with China, globalisation, and plastic mass production. What has this brought to our world and how has it directly impacted our health? 

‘Made in China’ questions whether, as we reach the end of this pandemic, we have a new-found appreciation of the simpler things and more social equality, or instead if our approach to China, globalisation, consumerism, corporate tax-avoidance and drive for individual wealth will remain the same.

Find out more: 

Website: www.spencerglover.com

Instagram:@spencer_glover_photos

Make it better

The project ‘Make it better’ is a graphic representation, in an ironic and light-hearted way, of finding the good in ourselves and transposing it into the things around us. This, however, does not mean creating a distorted perception of reality, but on the contrary managing to have a positive view of everyday life, even if it does not seem to be the best. 

It is a hymn to the search for inner balance, calmness and serenity, so that external events do not bring excessive disturbance, or at least do not make us doubt ourselves, because our personality and being are well established and defined. I made it with a mix of techniques. 

The images were taken with an analogue camera. Once printed, I started to embroider on them, making my vision real. My artistic research wants to investigate the innermost aspects of the human soul, through photography, which for me takes on a cathartic function: an aid to understanding and self-understanding, as well as delving into universal themes.

Find out more: 

Website: www.giorgiapastorelli.it

Instagram:@giorgiapastorelli__

 

Heavy Hearts

The issues of insecurity occupy a whole generation. A world in which things are not getting better but worse every day. A constant race against things that you can’t fight alone.

There is always the possibility of being confronted with everything that can weaken you. Being confronted with everything that can go wrong, but on the other hand, hope and unprecedented possibilities. An uncertain future, and heavy hearts.

Never before have there been so many possibilities; never before could it be so easy.

However, many opportunities imply at least as many chances to fail. The pressure on young people to achieve greatness, to be significant, and to leave a legacy has never been greater.

With this project, the artist tries to reflect the feelings of her generation. A generation that cries out for self-realisation. A generation that is brave enough to be themselves and to push boundaries. Boundaries of freedom and love for oneself.

Find out more: 

Website: www.isabellamelis.vsble.me/people

Instagram: @bellhund

My sisters and brothers

In the family albums, the first photos, proof of our existence, do not represent us alone.

In a bubble bath, under the Christmas tree, on the beach, all dressed up; our early moments feature us with our close-in-age relatives : our sisters and brothers.

‘My sisters and brothers’ stems from this realisation as it recreates some of the silly or sacred moments that unite siblings. Be it a meal or a game, from the garden to the sofa, grieving or laughing, this series revives all the mischievous and solemn times that exalt siblinghood.

The combination of all these scenes draws a world : a world of tied blood, of allied rivals, of our last support, for they were our first.

Each group of siblings is presented in a staging that is symbolic of their specific bond. Immersed in all these family tales, I then witnessed the knitting of a network made of friends, cousins, friends’ sisters and cousins’ brothers, and the brothers’ sisters, and our sisters’ brothers. 


Beyond all the photos, siblinghood then takes on a whole new meaning.

Find out more: 

Website: www.maximemichelet.com

Instagram: @maxime.michelet

Echo

If a picture represents one world, is it possible to combine different worlds or is it possible to integrate them into one whole? And will the integrated world produce more wonderful semantics?

I hope the form of splicing with the two couplets of the photos can bring a synaesthesia type of reading experience, which is visual as well as having a literary imagination.

The relationship between the two pictures can not only be mutual complementation in coordination, but can also create  tension and conflict. They can create brightness with the same breath in a progressive way and can also bring in the hidden soft voice while being  strangers to each other.

There is a wonderful relationship and magnetic power between them; like two phrases with vague meanings, they are integrated into a kind of “reading”, as in poetry.

Find out more: 

Website: www.liuxiart.cn

Instagram: @liuxi17