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AAP Magazine Portrait. Early Bird Deadline Ends May 1st!
AAP Magazine Portrait. Early Bird Deadline Ends May 1st!
Lynn Savarese
Lynn Savarese
Lynn Savarese

Lynn Savarese

Country: United States
Birth: 1956

For me, the greatest joy of photography is the experience of intimate observation of elements from the natural world, and how my images often serve as metaphoric portraits of my own thoughts and feelings. Originally from a small town in Texas, I lived and traveled throughout the world before making New York City my home in the early ‘80s following my graduation from Harvard Law School. In the decade since taking up photography, my work has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions both in the USA and abroad, and has earned me prestigious national and international recognition.

Statement
Creative endeavor often begins with paper. The novelist, playwright, and poet; the composer; the painter and sculptor—each commence with a blank sheet of paper. During Covid confinement, I also turned to paper for inspiration, seeking to metaphorically portray it spawning and nurturing creation, from ovulation and gestation to birth and fully formed progeny. In the process, I experienced how paper has a life force of its own—its own particular physics—that resists complete manipulation even as it remains malleable. Paper reams and splayed books insist on unfurling in their own way, and crumpled wads of paper insist on their own projectile designs—invariably more complex than one could ever engineer.
 

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Marna Clarke
United States
I am 81 years old. I was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and have lived the last quarter of my life in California. The intervening years were spent in pursuit of a college education in North Carolina, working for IBM in Washington, DC, educating myself in photography in New York City and Connecticut, and living in Michigan where my parents finally moved to be near my sister and her family. Somewhere along the way I got married, had two sons, divorced, and stopped photographing. I moved to California in 1996, to Marin County north of San Francisco. Five years later I met a man who saw some of my work on the walls of my home and encouraged me to get back to photographing. He courted me for a year after which he asked me to move in with him. In 2005, he bought me a digital camera and I fell in love again with the magic of recording images I found interesting and unique. In 2010, I started photographing the two of us as we began showing signs of getting old. Little did I know that eleven years later I’d still be engaged in that project, entitled Time As We Know It. I have received numerous recognitions for my work including being accepted into the 2020 deYoung Museum Open Exhibition. I was also awarded the grand prize at the 2021 Kaunas (Lithuania) International Photo Festival and was honored to be voted into the Critical Mass Top 50 artists in Photolucida’s 2021 competition. Time As We Know It On my 70th birthday, I woke from a dream in which I had rounded a corner and seen the end. This disturbing dream moved me to begin photographing my partner and myself, chronicling our time of growing old. Now, eleven years out, he and I face numerous physical challenges: decreased mental acuity, especially memory; the diminished quality of our skin, hair and teeth; mild disfigurement; as well as the need to tend vigilantly to our balance, hearing, sight, physical agility and getting adequate sleep. Inside we are learning to accept what is, sometimes going from anger, impatience, sadness or fear to seeing the humor in the idiosyncrasies of growing old. We realize that if we can be comfortable with our own aged appearances and limitations, then the potential exists that others will become more comfortable witnessing this transformation and possibly become more comfortable with their own. I have entered taboo territory, aging and death. The creation of these photos is part of my own way of dealing with the inevitability of dying by bringing attention to it and accepting it. I have come to embrace them as a tribute not just to our lives but also to the demanding and courageous task of growing old gracefully, graciously, and aware. A certain wisdom is evolving from years of living and observing, eventually unveiling previously unseen associations, patterns and similarities. I am gaining a much-appreciated perspective that was not available to me as a younger woman.
Chen Jiagang
China
1962
Born in 1962 in Chong Qing, Chen Jiagang began his career as a celebrated architect and real estate developer before making the transition to photography. In 1999, he was named one of twelve "Outstanding Young Architects" by the United Nations. Jiagang is the founder of the Sichuan Upriver Museum, the first private museum in China and the author of Third Front (Timezone 8 Limited, 2007). He currently lives and works in Beijing.Source: Edwynn Houk Gallery Although originally trained as an architect (and awarded by the UN the accolade of being one of the 12 ‘outstanding young architects' in China), Chen Jiagang has been a practicing photographer for over 12 years, and has exhibited widely since 1999. He has twice been awarded the Excellent Works Award at the annual China Photographic Arts Exhibitions. Chen photographs often feature obsolete and useless factories, hidden away in his country's hinterlands. Among these monumental, abandoned ruins, these industrial leftovers, he places ghostly human figures, reminding us of the workers who lost their jobs and were sent back home to start again. He documents the effects on society of China's extraordinary development drive in these large, sumptuous compositions.Source: Waterhouse & Dodd 1980-1984 studied in Architecture Department of Chongqing Architecture College from 1980 to 1984. 1984-1992 worked in Southwest Architecture Design Institute as a National Certified Architect, and had been awarded grand architecture prizes in various types for many times. 1992 founded the Company of Chengdu Haosi Property Development. 1996 the Company of Sichuan Gangjia Architecture Design. 1997 founded Sichuan Upriver Stock Co., Ltd. 1997 founded Upriver Art Gallery, the first private Art Gallery in China. 1998 founded Chengdu Upriver Guildhall and Kunming Upriver Guildhall. 1999 elected as one of the twelve "Outstanding Young Architect" of China by UN. 2001 Bigining to be an artist from then on. 2002 The excellent works prize of the 20th China Photographic Exhibition. 2003 The excellent works prize of the 21th China Photographic Exhibition. Personal Exhibitions 2012 Diseased City, Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery, Paris, France Chen Jiagang photography, Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki, Finland
Dirk Roseport
Belgium
1955
Advertising creative director and self-taught photographer. Inspired by Jem Southam, Jonathan Smith, Mark Rothko, Mies van der Rohe, Mihokajioka, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Annie Leibovitz, Asako Naharashi and new discoveries every day... Roseport focuses on projects that he fills out thematically over several years. CLOSER TO THE GODS Closer To The Gods was created during the Covid era when, like many photographers, he fell back on previously created material; inhospitable plateaus and glaciers of Iceland, the mountain landscapes of the Pyrenees and the high altitude deserts of Ladakh. In Closer To The Gods, these are portrayed hard and directly in powerful, high-contrast black-and-white photography. Nature does not invite here, she imposes. Compelling, ominous, at times almost menacing. It is a nature that impresses and often looks as if it could insidiously swallow and crush us at any moment. TRANSCENDENTAL TRANQUILITY In his project Transcendental Tranquility he brings us seascapes, distilled to their essence, authentic without any post-processing. It all has to happen in the camera. If it doesn't happen there, it goes into the trash. Sometimes the oceans are no longer recognizable and they become Rothkosian color impressions, but his goal is not to show an ocean. The point is to create a scene that induces a state of tranquility in which what is perceived as troublesome in the psyche falls away. Nature does not impose itself here, but invites the viewer to drown in it and regain the peace that we so often lack today. Roseport sees the Transcendental Tranquility project as the antithesis of the Closer To The Gods work. FADING MEMORIES Always exploring, Roseport also created the Fading Memories project that invites viewers to create their own stories. Roseport: "As time passes, memories fade. What was once sharp, clear and vivid in our minds becomes blurred. Shapes and colors disappear. Bits and pieces are gone never to return. With Fading Memories, I try to visualize this feeling of losing the details. The images take on a dreamlike surreal atmosphere. And usually we will remember what has been forgotten, more beautifully - if hard or soft - than it actually was. That's what we do. That's how we survive. In Fading Memories, I know the story behind the image. The place. The time. The people. The viewers don't. There is an analogy here with projective tests like Rorschach, when ambigious stimuli reveal hidden emotions and internal conflicts. Thanks to what the viewers don't see, the images suggest more open stories than the ones I know. More open stories than they would see if the images were intact. So their minds will create their own story. Immediately. I invite them not to stop it. Have Fading Memories challenge their imagination."
Annick Donkers
Annick Donkers is a documentary photographer from Antwerp, Belgium. After obtaining a Master’s degree in Psychology, she decided to specialize in photography. She has received a grant from the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was selected to participate in the Seminar on Contemporary Photography at the Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City (2008). Her work has been exhibited and published internationally. She was one of the winners at the Survival International Competition (2015), won an award at the San José Photo Festival in Uruguay (2016), the Sony Awards in UK (2016), the MIFA awards in Russia (2016), the IPA awards in USA (2016), the TIFA awards in Tokyo (2016), received an honorable mention at the Px3 Prix de la Photo in Paris(2016), was selected at Latin American Photography vol.5 (2016), on the cover of Dodho magazine (2016), shortlisted for the Kolga Tbilisi Awards and Athens Photo Festival (2017). She currently lives and works as a freelance photographer in Mexico City.About Lucha Libre Extrema The Lucha Libre Extrema series emerged from a growing interest I had in Mexican professional wrestling. I was soon drawn towards sub-genres of the sport such as Lucha Libre Exótica and Lucha Extrema. This semi-clandestine hardcore genre is currently prohibited in Mexico City because of how dangerous it is, but events still take place outside the capital, notably at a car wash-turned-arena in Tulancingo, the village where El Santo, Mexico’s most famous pro wrestler, was born. The participants receive professional training and are paid a little bit more because of the risks they take. They perform with a variety of weapons: chairs, thumbtacks, wire, and fluorescent lights, turning the ring into a war zone. Yet the community of luchadores “extremos” is closely knit and few outsiders have gained access. Mexico has been a very violent place in recent years. As such, I found it fascinating that people were drawn to the dangerous world of Lucha Libre Extrema and turned my camera to the audience in an attempt to understand their reasons. About Afromexican HealersAt the end of last year my attention was drawn to the coastal region of Guerrero known as Costa Chica, located to the south of Acapulco. This region is home to Mexicans descended from African slaves that identify themselves as being “black”. But outside this region they are little-known and they are currently fighting to be officially recognized by the Mexican State. The Costa Chica is also a place rooted in traditional beliefs that include appearances of trolls, the devil and spirit animals. The legend tells that when a baby is born, a member of the family brings the child to a crossroads up in the mountains where lots of wild animals pass by. The first creature to approach the child will be the child's spirit animal, or tono in Spanish, since there is now a dependency created between child and animal. This means that when the animal is hurt, wounded or dies, the person is too. In the Afromexican communities there are healers that will cure these "animal"-related illnesses, since conventional medicine will not work in these cases. The person is cured with herbs selected by the healers and also according to the needs of the animal. They call these healers curanderos del tono and there are only a small number of them left. I went to the Costa Chica region in an attempt to capture what remains of this Afromexican tradition.
Meg McKenzie Ryan
United States
Los Angeles resident Meg McKenzie Ryan married young, before graduating from college. Her husband's job involved flying to Hong Kong, so one day Meg surprised him by flying there. Asking friends what she should shop for there, buying a camera was the unanimous suggestion. So that's what happened. She didn't know how to use it, so she enrolled in a not-for-credit class at the University of California, Los Angeles. Jerry McMillan was her instructor there and later at California State University, Northridge where she earned her Bachelor in photography. In the early 70s, McMillan was active in the Los Angeles art scene, and he was particularly interested (it seemed) in helping photography to be recognized as an art form. Non-traditional subjects and alternative presentations were encouraged. I was game. Then, Meg remarried and moved to Burkina Faso, a country in West Africa, and then to neighboring Lome, Togo where her daughter was born. The culture there was incredibly different than her Los Angeles home. Religion, work and working conditions, poverty, homes, clothing, food, etc. were all new. It was a lot to digest, and more than she was prepared to face with her camera. Next, the young family moved to Bloomington, Indiana where Meg was able to study for a Masters degree in photography. Jeff Wolin was her primary instructor, and he was shooting an 8" x 10" field camera, so Meg decided to acquire one. Mostly she shot landscapes at the time. Wolin, on the other hand, was shooting beautiful shots of the rock quarries around Bloomington, and later did a project on Holocaust survivors and later still on homelessness. Moving again to the lower desert of California (city of El Centro), Meg landed a full-time photography job at the local daily newspaper. It was excellent experience for the young and somewhat shy photographer because she learned to shoot pictures of people. And this was the start of her project featured here, The lives of others. Her home was just ten miles north of the Mexicali, Mexico border town and capital of the state of Baja California, Mexico. It was easy (at the time) to cross the border, find the poorer neighborhoods, and ask to shoot their pictures. It's no accident that her photography became more documentary-like at its heart. The newspaper work and living in such a foreign place as West Africa pulled her in that direction. And at some point she realized that photos of people interested her the most. The work was wonderful, rewarding, and rich with experience and learning. Meg hopes you'll take time to look at the photos here.
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