Photography

the faceless -Ugo Nwagbala

ARTIST
Ugo Nwagbala

ARTIST WEBSITE
Ugo Nwagbala

LOCATION
Riverside, CA

This project is about how beauty can be shown without the face and how color can transform a scene into an ethereal and surreal fantasyland. People with their faces obscured, turning away from the camera, and having reflections take over their face helps to create a sense of distortion, questioning of the self, and thinking of what it truly means to be. The bright colors and soft forms help to offset and challenge the hard philosophical questions that these images seek to provoke.

Ugo Nwagbala is a photographer, musician, and DJ from Riverside, California. His photographic work often features bright colors, contrast, surreal images, and scenes that invoke a sense of longing. His eclectic taste and diverse interests help fuel his work that often deals with challenging his audience to question their beliefs and perspectives.

Karimun - Sandi Johnson

ARTIST
©Sandi Johnson

ARTIST WEBSITE
Sandi Johnson

LOCATION
Salem OR

Situated in the Riau Islands of Indonesia, the mission was to provide access to basic medical care: assessment, diagnosis and limited treatment. Away from the clinic I would wander the village, bridging the language barrier by offering film portraits - the children especially loved carrying around their individual instant photos.


As a Nurse and as a Photographer, the central theme of my work remains the same: to foster authentic connection, however brief, as we navigate the human condition - together.

Planet Solitude - Edwin Martinez

ARTIST
Edwin Martinez

ARTIST WEBSITE
Edwin Martinez

LOCATION
Pomona CA

Planet Solitude is a collection of various photos that depict a feeling of solitude within nature. There are many moments where being alone in a certain landscape can feel calming or blissful. I picked the images that I feel convey that blissfulness of solitude.


Edwin Martinez lives in Pomona, CA. I've been studying the photographic process of film consecutively for about 5 years. My love of film came when I took a photography class in college around 2014. I fell in love with the whole process that I couldn't go back to digital. I started a project of shooting film everyday in 2017 with a holga which started me down the path of shooting street photography. Now everywhere I go I carry one of my 20 film cameras around.

Voir - Robin Luevano

ARTIST
Robin Luevano

ARTIST WEBSITE
Robin Luevano

LOCATION
La Punte CA

Voir for me this word compartmentalized what I was trying to capture. I wanted to capture the way I perceived detail, both physically and emotionally. While the word can simply be translated to "see" or "view" it can also mean to regard or behold, in a wider use of the word it can be to imagine or conceive. 

I came to a realization that I gravitate toward non-traditional film endings. Happy endings were too open ended for me and I found more closure in an ending that provided the likelihood of "things don't always turn out how you want them to" . Like anyone else I found myself with a group of comfort films, but they all happened to follow this criteria.  And I had to wonder why I interpret films this way and why this preference provided that sense of escapism I could never glean from a traditional arch. So without rewatching any of these comfort films I decided to think about them. What came to mind was never character or plot but it was detail and even feeling that stayed etched in my memory. I wanted to highlight these details the way I remember them and based on memory alone.  It didn't feel right to simply recreate. Everyone interprets differently and the truth is the way I interpret film is the way but film is the way I interpret my surroundings; in detail, in snapshots.

DES-TETAR (2018-2021 - Zaida Kersten

ARTIST
©Zaida Kersten

ARTIST WEBSITE
Zaida Kersten

LOCATION
Barcelona, Paris and Mexico

Des-Tetar (Wean : stop breastfeeding)

The second vitally important moment of separation after birth in people's lives is weaning. It is not only about stopping feeding, but also about separating, about leaving that state of emotional fusion that involves so many affections.

I decided to start weaning gradually when my daughter was two years old. But the reason for stopping breastfeeding contradicted my own feelings and that generated a depression in me. I lived the process as a duel.

When I became aware of my true desire as a mother, I returned breastfeeding on demand. I understood and accepted my dependency and my fear of abandonment…. In the process I learned that the decision to wean had to be agreed upon and accepted by both of us, my daughter and myself. I continued to breastfeed my daughter until she was four and a half years old. We set the date together and did a ritual to celebrate.

Zaida Kersten is a photographer of Spanish-Mexican nationality. She graduated in Journalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (2000), she worked for ten years at the Agence France Presse in Paris and began photography after following training at the Center Iris school (Paris 2005-06). A member of the Agence Révélateur (2012-17), she has exhibited in galleries in different European countries as well as in various international festivals (Itinéraires des Photographes Voyageurs, FotOax, Revela-T, Phémina Photo Festival, Arles Voies Off). In 2019 she self-published her first photobook "Uterus" and cofounded the collective AmaZones Collectif. And in 2021 she launches the second edition of “UTERUS.” He currently lives and works in Mazunte, Oaxaca (Mexico).

The Transience of Things - Anne Marie Éluard

ARTIST
Anne Marie Éluard
Valencia, Spain

ARTIST WEBSITE
Instagram
Patreon

"Anne Marie Éluard” is the alias where the contemporary artist born and located in Valencia, Spain; Laura Soriano, hides and carries out an introspection artwork that confronts and exposes her own demons and fears as if in a mirror.

The artist goes behind the camera casting herself as the protagonist of a quest for beauty and why not for her own miseries. Each image exudes beauty, erotism, obsession, provocation, and melancholy in color and b&w self-portraits.

Profoundly influenced by the surrealist movement, the work of Germaine Krull, Ernest J. Belloq or Marghethe Mather, Anne Marie Eluard could easily pass herself as an anonymous character from the Weimar Republic mixed with the endless melancholy of her beloved artist Francesca Woodman."

Selected Works BY Rosario Valdivia

SELECTED WORKS BY ROSARIO VALDIVIA

ARTIST
ROSARIO VALDIVIA

ARTIST WEBSITE

Growing up in the Antelope Valley, I watched homes and businesses change from inhabited and open to abandoned and closed. My photographs function as an archive to preserve the memoryof these buildings and the histories they represent. Palmdale city officials declare, “The Antelope Valley is thriving with opportunities,” but limited job opportunities and lack of community support affirm otherwise. Scattered throughout the vast landscape are deserted homes and businesses, money pits and projects neglected by the community. Commercial buildings seem to change occupancy every few months and neighbors come and go from increasingly derelict homes. New buildings and city projects alter the landscape only to be rejected before their completion. Schools and recreational destinations have diminished. Within the Antelope ValleySchool District, a thirty-million-dollarcharter school stands empty, a last-minute decision shutting it downjust before the scheduled opening. 

I used to explore recreational lands – now closed to the public or under ceaseless renovations – and fish the waters – nowdried to ponds,or playas,and dry lake beds. Campgrounds have closed, their decaying residue left on the roadside. I have lived among and within these buildings and landscapes most of my life, witnessing the changes firsthand and photographing them over time. I document these buildings using B&W film with both large and medium format cameras. This process allows me to put more time into photographing these places that were once someone’s home or business and to focus on the space in which these subjects are located, seeking to give each image the respect it deserves.


Rosario Valdivia is a queer Latinx multimedia artist from Montclair, CA. They are currently studying at Cal Poly Pomona to receive their Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communication Design. 

Selected Works by Jake Martinez

Selected Works by Jake Martinez

ARTIST
JAKE MARTINEZ

ARTIST WEBSITE
JAKE MARTINEZ

Growing up in the Antelope Valley, I watched homes and businesses change from inhabited and open to abandoned and closed. My photographs function as an archive to preserve the memoryof these buildings and the histories they represent. Palmdale city officials declare, “The Antelope Valley is thriving with opportunities,” but limited job opportunities and lack of community support affirm otherwise. Scattered throughout the vast landscape are deserted homes and businesses, money pits and projects neglected by the community. Commercial buildings seem to change occupancy every few months and neighbors come and go from increasingly derelict homes. New buildings and city projects alter the landscape only to be rejected before their completion. Schools and recreational destinations have diminished. Within the Antelope ValleySchool District, a thirty-million-dollarcharter school stands empty, a last-minute decision shutting it downjust before the scheduled opening. 

I used to explore recreational lands – now closed to the public or under ceaseless renovations – and fish the waters – nowdried to ponds,or playas,and dry lakebeds. Campgrounds have closed, their decaying residue left on the roadside. I have lived among and within these buildings and landscapes most of my life, witnessing the changes firsthand and photographing them over time. I document these buildings using B&W film with both large and medium format cameras. This process allows me to put more time into photographing these places that were once someone’s home or business and to focus on the space in which these subjects are located, seeking to give each image the respect it deserves.

Jake Martinez is a photographer based in Palmdale, CA. He began his photography practice while pursuing a BA in Psychology at California State University, Northridge, which lead him to pursue my master’s in photography at CSUN. Jake’s work is influenced by firsthand experience witnessing detritus left behind in the Antelope Valley and watching homes and businesses change from inhabited and open to abandoned and closed. He is interested in preserving the memory of these buildings and how the psychology of place affects those who live in these areas.

SICILY #2 - Massimo Gurciullo

Massimo Gurciullo: Sicily #2

ARTIST
Massimo Gurciullo
Italy

ARTIST WEBSITE

Massimo GURCIULLO  born in Sicily (1961). In 1982 he moved to Paris and began his profession. Mainly nudes and portraits represent for many years (more than 30) the main subject of his work.

Exhibits in France, Italy, Spain,Romania, Switzerland. Realizes books of photography, the first "NUDI" presents the nude works of the period 1982-1983

"Portraits Cycle N ° 3" is a handmade artist's book in 100 signed and numbered copies. It is a book about portraits in the studio, an analogical work that GURCIULLO personally prints in the darkroom.

Then comes the 2012 book "Portraits ... 30 ans" which collects the first 30 years of his studio portraits.

In 2013 he leaves the studio and goes into the street with a digital device. After 4 years, the book "Sicily" is published by the Portuguese publisher The Unknown Books.”Sicily # 2” is a new magazine, with annual issue, published by the small publishing house Fototeca Siracusana Libri. Sicily #2 will be released towards the end of 2021.

Since 2013 he is also curator of the photography festival in Sicily in the Fototeca Siracusana gallery in Siracusa  (Sicily) and in 2021 the photofestival ESTATE FOTOGRAFIA is in its fifth edition.

COLORLESS- XU JiaQi 徐嘉琦

XU JiaQi 徐嘉琦- COLORLESS

ARTIS
XU JiaQi (徐嘉琦)

ARTIST WEBSITE
XU JiaQi 徐嘉琦

XU JiaQi (徐嘉琦) b. 2000, is a Chinese photographer from Shenzhen, China. Xu’s photographic work is based on communication, observation and feeling of reality.

”Society and environment in which we live is the reality and the inspiration for creation”. It was destiny that brought Xu to photography, using it as a tool to record the state of life, but now feels photography has become the state of life itself.