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Jacko Vassilev
Jacko Vassilev
Jacko Vassilev

Jacko Vassilev

Country: Bulgary
Birth: 1951

Jacko Vassilev is an internationally acclaimed art and press photographer, actively working in the field since 1983.
He was born in 1951 in Stara Zagora in Bulgaria. His work has been widely shown around the world in museums and galleries, institutes and private collections. His photographs are included in the permanent collections of the International Center for Photography in New York City, the European Center of Photography in Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Since 1996 Vassilev’s been residing and traveling around the United States.
 

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Monica Testa
Italy
1967
Shortly after my art studies, I started working as a fashion designer for a large company, which allowed me to deepen my knowledge and work in the world of graphics and style. It was a challenging and rewarding job, thanks to which I had the opportunity to travel a lot around the world, meeting people from various ethnic backgrounds, enriching myself enormously from a cultural and personal point of view. I had always been passionate about photography and to such an extent that I could no longer do without it. After taking several courses and studying the greatest photographers in history, I decided to enrol at the Italian Institute of Photography in Milan: a constructive experience that made me grow a lot, both on a technical and creative level. I truly enjoy observing people and also studying their psychological side. That's why I especially love working on portraits and telling the stories of those I meet, always keeping a careful and respectful eye, tiptoeing into situations that I find interesting. I delve into them, I make them my own. I use photography to express how I feel, how I see, how I perceive and absorb the flow of life around me. I transform my thoughts and my feelings into images, thus aiming to become a same part of the image I portray. The River Text from "Monica’s Diary (Benin 2019):" Today we reached a small village flooded by the abundant rains of recent days. The tribe that lives there is accustomed to this situation and in effect they live in real palafittes suspended on the water; and so we reached the village in the only way possible ... by canoe. We brought t-shirts for the children, eggs for snacks and, more importantly, mosquito nets which, given the area they live in, particularly humid and infested with mosquitoes, are essential. The landscape was spectacular and my eyes saw incredible realities... all so far from our daily life! The school was small and very crowded, obviously they had been warned of our arrival and especially the children were waiting for us with trepidation. Compared to other villages we had visited the previous days, the people who live here are quite aggressive. They were a little agitated, they all talked loudly, they pushed us constantly. The adults looked at us with curiosity and the children with shyness: it was noticeable that they were not used to seeing people of a different color in their village. For this we were escorted by the local police, in case the situation deteriorated. But everything went well and another day passed ... lived as if it were a whole life. Face to Face Form zero to one hundred This is an ambitious project, started in 2017 and not yet finished. The idea would be to photograph portraits of people of different ages, sex and ethnicity, who in some way fascinated me and consequently I asked them to pose for me. I would like to get to a hundred photos, a different one for each age from zero to one hundred years.
Eddy Verloes
Belgium
1959
As a visual storyteller, he creates a poetic and mysterious world in his mainly black and white photos that sometimes balance between realism and surrealism. He is always focused on the decisive moment and shoots with his soul, not with his camera. Some of his (street) photos are also spiced with a touch of humor and it's difficult to put him in a box. Eddy Verloes studied literature, philosophy and arts at the University of Louvain (Belgium) and the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg i.B. (Germany), is a lecturer at the Royal Military Academy and General Manager of Verloes Languages & Training. As a photographer, he studied at CVO Louvain (Belgium). Between 2015 and 2021 he has published 4 photo books ("No time to Verloes", "Cuba libre", "Zeezuchten" and "Losing Our Minds/Buiten zinnen") and has exhibited in several galleries in the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Greece, Italy, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium. He has been selected several times for national and international competitions (LensCulture, CEWE Photo Challenge, Fotonale Brugge). In 2020 he has already received more than 30 awards/ prizes including the jury prize of the 11th Photography Contest in France (Toulouse), he was the Belgian Winner of the EISA Maestro Photo Contest 2020, finalist at the PassePartout Photography Prize (Italy), Vienna International Photo Awards 2020, New York Center for Photographic Art, selected for PhotoPlace Gallery (Vermont), winner at the Open Call 2020 ("Fine Art") Lucie Foundation Los Angeles, Winner at the Antwerp International Photography Festival, selected as one of the 25 Winners at the All-About-Photo Contest B&W, selected as one of the best contemporary photographers worldwide by the American site All-About-Photo, accepted into A Smith Gallery's "light" exhibition (Texas), selected for the Atlanta Photography Group in the Tula Art Center, Winner at the 3. Fotowettbewerb des Museums Synagoge Gröbzig (Germany), Winner of the Life Framer Photo Contest 2020 ("Civilization") and selected for the Life Framer Collection, selected at the Duncan Miller Gallery (California), Travel Photographer of the Year 2020 (People of the World).
Miles Aldridge
United KIngdom
1964
Miles Aldridge rose to prominence in the mid-nineties with his arresting, highly stylised photographs with references to film noir, art history and pop culture. An acclaimed colourist, he renders elaborate mise-en-scènes in a palette of vibrant acidic hues. These glamorous, frequently eroticised images probe society's idealised notions of domestic bliss where sinister undercurrents swirl beneath a flawless surface. Aldridge has worked prolifically for more than twenty-five years, and today he remains one of the few photographers still shooting predominately on film. His creative output encompasses large-scale c-type prints, Polaroids, screenprints, photogravures and drawings. Born in London in 1964, the son of famed art director and illustrator Alan Aldridge, his interest in photography began at an early age when he was given a Nikon F camera by his father. He went on to study graphic design at Central Saint Martins, graduating with a BA in 1987. Aldridge initially worked as an illustrator and music video director, before turning his attention to photography. In 1996 he began working with Franca Sozzani, the legendary editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia, and their boundary-pushing collaboration would continue for twenty years. In addition to the many international editions of Vogue, Aldridge's images have featured regularly in prestigious titles including Harper's Bazaar, Numéro, W, The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker. Aldridge develops each new photographic narrative by rendering his initial thoughts in ink or pencil sketches with washes of watercolour and pastel. These drawings and storyboards are an essential early stage in his creative process. He believes that 'fiction and theatricality can be more truthful than documenting reality' and translates his sketches into meticulously arranged compositions to create images reminiscent of film stills: frames snatched from a broader story. Aldridge notes that many of his favourite moments in cinema are, as he describes, "closeups of a woman's face thinking", and he shares Hitchcock's ability to create powerful moments of suspense, turning viewers into voyeurs. In Aldridge's Chromo Thriller (2012) there is a palpable resonance with David Lynch's neo-noir mystery Blue Velvet, where immaculate façades hide darkly strange stories. As one author has noted: "Aldridge's female protagonists recall the glamour and splendour of Isabella Rossellini's character whilst at the same time remaining suggestive of something more sinister." Only rarely does he allow the real world to encroach upon the imagined realm. Through his lens, even reality appears artificial. In the series Capital Gains (2007) and Open Tour (2008) the cities of Washington DC and Paris look cleaner and sleeker than ever before. In The Last Range of Colours (2007), a lone figure in a children's playground evokes both the Technicolor splendour of The Wizard of Oz and the haunting dreamscape of a Giorgio de Chirico painting. A recurring theme throughout Aldridge's oeuvre is the false promise of luxury. Psychedelic interiors are furnished with the trappings of mid-century suburban comfort: gleaming kitchen appliances, candy-coloured telephones and well-groomed pets denote success. The work conflates historic and modern motifs and makes subtle reference to the art historical canon. The project Immaculée (2007) points to Catholic depictions of female saints in ecstasy, whilst his portraits of Lily Cole (2005) and Maisie Williams (2017) draw inspiration from Northern Renaissance masters such as Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein. Pop Art tropes feature predominantly: Coca-Cola logos (3D, 2010; A Family Portrait #14, 2011), soup cans and tomato ketchup bottles (A Drop of Red #2, 2001; First Impressions, 2006) all form a striking part of his visual lexicon. His fascination with art history led Aldridge to undertake projects with several significant contemporary artists including Maurizio Cattelan, Gilbert & George and Harland Miller. For the project (after Cattelan) (2016), he was invited by Cattelan to respond to the Italian artist's exhibition, Not Afraid of Love, in the grand neoclassical rooms of the Monnaie de Paris. The resulting series of c-type photographs depicts statuesque nudes dominating Cattelan's hyperreal sculptures in a series of absurdist tableaux. A second series, titled Love Always and Love All Ways after Gilbert & George (2016), was made with the British duo at their London townhouse. Drawing on the conventions of Victorian melodrama, Aldridge devised a series centred around the story of an enigmatic young visitor staying at the house for the weekend. In a further nod to Victoriana, the images were printed using the nineteenth-century photogravure process, whereby an etched copper plate produces highly detailed intaglio prints. The monotone prints were augmented with blocks of bold colour and hand-painted details to create a contemporary aesthetic. His most recent collaboration was with Harland Miller, known for his paintings of imaginary book covers that were partly inspired by Alan Aldridge's 1960s designs for Penguin paperbacks. In a satisfying symmetry, Aldridge transformed Miller's paintings into real books, used as props in his photoshoot. The resulting screenprints evoke the grainy colour supplements of Aldridge's youth and were published by Poligrafa, Barcelona's renowned fine art publisher, who launched them at the 2017 edition of Art Basel Miami Beach. Poligrafa went on to publish the subsequent screenprint series New Utopias, which they exhibited at the 2018 edition of Art Basel. Most recently, Tan Lines, one of Aldridge's largest screenprints to date, was unveiled by Poligrafa at the 2019 edition of The Armory Show, New York. Aldridge's major museum exhibitions include his upcoming retrospective Virgin Mary. Supermarkets. Popcorn. Photographs 1999 - 2020 at Fotografiska, New York, which opened 7th May 2021 having first appeared at Fotografiska Museum, Stockholm (2020-2021), solo shows at The Lumiere Brothers Photography Centre, Moscow (2019) and OCA, São Paulo (2015) and I Only Want You to Love Me at Somerset House, London (2013). In 2014, he was commissioned by Tate Britain to create a photographic installation in response to Mark Gertler's 1916 painting Merry-Go-Round. London's National Portrait Gallery houses a large collection of Aldridge's portraits and his work is held in prestigious museums and institutions around the world including the Victoria and Albert Museum and British Museum in London, the Fondation Carmignac and the Palais Galliera in Paris, the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Massachusetts and the International Center of Photography in New York. -- Susanna Brown Curator of Photography Victoria and Albert MuseumSource: milesaldridge.com
Deb Achak
United States
Raised in New Hampshire, Deb Achak holds a master's degree in social work and is a self-trained photographer and filmmaker. She lives in Seattle, WA with her husband and sons in a grand old home that was once a bed and breakfast. Deb's fine art photography explores natural elements of water and grasses - earth elements with clean, simple compositions meant to calm and soothe. Her children are also a growing subject of her fine art work. Her photographs have been exhibited at the Black Box Gallery, Portland, OR; Sante Fe Photographic Workshops, Sante Fe, NM; the SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC: and Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro, VT. About She Told Us To Trust Our Intuition My mother's last words to my siblings and I before she died were "trust your gut instincts". It's struck me over the years how profound and revolutionary that one simple phrase is. It has become my mantra - my north star. When we still our mind, free it of conscious thought, intuition can be heard and felt, and becomes the perfect guide. Some years ago, I started to notice that when I am in a deep flow with my art, it becomes a meditation and I am able to hear my inner voice with complete clarity. In this series I use water, color, movement and the human form to express the meditative quality I feel when I am in synch with the flow of creating. I seek to capture that single moment where my camera, my intuition, and the natural world are perfectly aligned, and to give gratitude to my mother for bestowing such a powerful parting gift. All the Colors I Am Inside
R.J. Kern
United States
1978
Kaat Stieber
The Netherlands
1972
Kaat Stieber is a fine art photographer who weaves the worlds of surrealism and noble Dutch art into her images. Born on a Dutch island, but shaped by her many years abroad and views on the world, Kaat is moved by diverse sceneries. From architecture in ancient cities to fields closer to home, the visuals are stored in her imagination. Capturing instants of nature and structure for later recall. The goal? Crafting her own, new world. Mixing a broad set of creative skills with an internationally acclaimed background in theatre and costume design, Kaat's photos are assembled with vast craftmanship. Kaat Stieber's main mission within the art industry, is to create painterly pictures. Working from her imagination, she combines crafts such as photography, costume making, concepting ideas, directing and over twenty years of experience in theatre into one rich final product. Always building and replaying stories in mind, always clutching a camera to capture specific scenes. Her works of art resemble tableaus from the Dutch Golden Age, clearly depicting pride in Dutch roots and an identification with classic Dutch culture. An admiration of surrealists adds to the scene. Kaat Stieber, crafting from the brain of a dreamer, mostly works with children for her portraits. The children in her images are seen as wholesome humans, each one strongly portraying a certain character. Kaat Stieber is clear in the direction of her pictures - she follows her own, distinctive path and doesn't compromise. The life experiences that lead her to creating her own painterly realms come with a patience in building exactly what is necessary for a photo. Even if that means one picture takes two months to create.
Olivia Arthur
United Kingdom
1980
Olivia Arthur is a British documentary photographer. She co-founded Fishbar, a publisher and space for photography in London, with Philipp Ebeling in 2010. Arthur is a member of the Magnum Photos agency and has produced the books Jeddah Diary (2012) and Stranger (2015). Originally studying mathematics at Oxford University, Arthur later studied photojournalism at London College of Printing. She became a nominee member of Magnum Photos in 2008, an associate member in 2011, and a full member in 2013. In 2010 Arthur co-founded Fishbar, a publisher and space for photography in East London, with her husband Philipp Ebeling. Her first book Jeddah Diary (2012) is about the lives of young women in Saudi Arabia. Her second book Stranger (2015) views Dubai through the eyes of the survivor of a shipwreck.Source: Wikipedia Olivia Arthur is known for her in-depth photography examining people and their personal and cultural identities. Much of her work has illuminated the daily lives of women living in countries as varied as Saudi Arabia, India and across Europe. A more recent focus on large format portraiture has brought her work back to the UK. “For me, part of the power of still photography is the ambiguousness of pictures, the ability to give a hint about a scene or event without being too absolute,” says Arthur of her work. Arthur was born in London and grew up in the UK. She studied mathematics at Oxford University and photojournalism at the London College of Printing. She began working as a photographer in 2003 after moving to Delhi and was based in India for two and a half years. In 2006, she left for Italy to take up a one-year residency with Fabrica, during which she began working on a series about women and cultural divides. Representation and the way we see ourselves are also areas of interest for Arthur. She explored these themes in her project In Private/Mumbai (2016-2018) about sexuality in India and through her ‘Portrait of a City’ commission about young people for Hull, City of Culture (2017). Arthur’s work has been shown in publications including The New Yorker, Vogue and TIME Magazine among others and selected commercial clients include British Airways, Capeb and BNP Paribas. She has received support from the Inge Morath Award, the National Media Museum, OjodePez-PhotoEspana Award for Human Values. Arthur continues to return to India and to work in London where she lives. She became a full member of Magnum Photos in 2013.Source: Magnum Photos
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