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Win a Solo Exhibition this October, Open Theme. Juror Aline Smithson.
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Maia Flore
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Maia Flore
Maia Flore

Maia Flore

Country: France
Birth: 1988

Maia Flore was born in 1988, in France. She is currently living in Paris.

Graduated from Ecole des Gobelins in 2010, she joined Agence VU' in 2011. Her approach fits into a research of coincidences between reality and her imagination. Her world is a complete fabrication in form of touching and enchanting narrations, even surrealistic.

This is in Sweden she begins her first series "Sleep Elevations", a journey that indulges in childhood memories. During the summer of 2012, while her first residence in Finland, Maia Flore explores new methods of representation and narration. These researches will then continue at the Arts Center of Berkeley, California. Resulting two series (Situations and Morning Sculptures) that continue to explore the feelings of confusion in which the photographer places her characters as her audience.

She is exposed for the first time in February 2011 at the festival Circulation (s) of the Young European Photography in Paris.

More recently, as part of a White Card from Atout France and the French Institute, Maia Flore depicts the French heritage through her dreamy world in the series "Imagine France – Le voyage fantastique" exposed in Bercy Village until September 2014.

In 2015, she wins Le prix HSBC pour la photographie.

Source: Agence VU


Situations (2012)
In the Situations series, a girl runs through varyingly weathered landscapes donning a striking red outfit. In search of a sublime freedom, she travels to find fleeting moments of communion with nature. Draped in red, she catches the light of the sun or buries herself in the fog. As though she were attempting to rediscover this space, she roams on land-locked clouds that evaporate into the landscape upon the return of the sun as it chases away their mystery. Like a game between reality and fantasy, the clash between clairvoyance and a moment of madness, the girl is amused by her emotional confusion.

Sleep Elevation (2010)
"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night," Edgar Allan Poe. This is how these girls, carried away in the air by objects, let themselves travel through boundless landscapes. Flying towards dreamed lands, making real a complete attraction between the character, his ideal universe and the world they live in: that is where these girls lead us. Their contorted movements are merging with the shape of the one revealing their passion. Mix of an imaginary realism and childhood memories, these beings in levitation invite us to dream, limitlessly.
 

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Beginning with the intent to reflect these people's realities and finding expression in practitioners of widely differing outlooks and goals. Photographing these kind of subjects acquire an aura by being taken from their casual, often overlooked, position and put under intense scrutiny. The outcome intent tool which should look upon my project dispassionately is capable of creating images, filtered through the imagination, which compellingly engages the viewer's imagination and emotions. It wasn't empathy, It wasn't sympathy, it was more of a forced, intrinsic, and integral self-reflection. What I did is photograph emotions, I was photographing the initial moment when I laid eyes on the human being beautiful face shape that reflects the whole story of what it means to be broke, Injured, homeless, beggar and poor underprivileged and sometimes even hopeless. I gave with the often willing and knowing collaboration of my subjects, a metonymic typology of people who lived in dark side of society, representing for us the poor, homelessness, the other half. I was after the general truth of a general category, and the finer truths of individuals necessarily caught my inspiration to pick up this precise subject matter to photograph. The center of each picture was the subject matter: a person and his or her experience at that moment in time. To me and many other progressives, the rock bottom status added them from personal contact with the impoverished even when Christianity and the Social Gospel created a burden to extent charity to the disfranchised and discarded in society. I came imbuing them with the iconic soul of humanity and left almost engaging a subject in eyes contact. All of my photographs with human subjects refer to not where the subject is located, but the person before the lens and how did I visualize their emotions and feelings in a humanitarian neutral way. My images are intended to resonate with the viewer on a spiritual and human level and I try to pack in the metaphysical…attributes which tell their own story. I try to provoke an imaginative and intelligent response from the viewer with a purely visual reference.
Maia Flore
France
1988
Maia Flore was born in 1988, in France. She is currently living in Paris. Graduated from Ecole des Gobelins in 2010, she joined Agence VU' in 2011. Her approach fits into a research of coincidences between reality and her imagination. Her world is a complete fabrication in form of touching and enchanting narrations, even surrealistic. This is in Sweden she begins her first series "Sleep Elevations", a journey that indulges in childhood memories. During the summer of 2012, while her first residence in Finland, Maia Flore explores new methods of representation and narration. These researches will then continue at the Arts Center of Berkeley, California. Resulting two series (Situations and Morning Sculptures) that continue to explore the feelings of confusion in which the photographer places her characters as her audience. She is exposed for the first time in February 2011 at the festival Circulation (s) of the Young European Photography in Paris. More recently, as part of a White Card from Atout France and the French Institute, Maia Flore depicts the French heritage through her dreamy world in the series "Imagine France – Le voyage fantastique" exposed in Bercy Village until September 2014. In 2015, she wins Le prix HSBC pour la photographie. Source: Agence VU Situations (2012) In the Situations series, a girl runs through varyingly weathered landscapes donning a striking red outfit. In search of a sublime freedom, she travels to find fleeting moments of communion with nature. Draped in red, she catches the light of the sun or buries herself in the fog. As though she were attempting to rediscover this space, she roams on land-locked clouds that evaporate into the landscape upon the return of the sun as it chases away their mystery. Like a game between reality and fantasy, the clash between clairvoyance and a moment of madness, the girl is amused by her emotional confusion. Sleep Elevation (2010) "Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night," Edgar Allan Poe. This is how these girls, carried away in the air by objects, let themselves travel through boundless landscapes. Flying towards dreamed lands, making real a complete attraction between the character, his ideal universe and the world they live in: that is where these girls lead us. Their contorted movements are merging with the shape of the one revealing their passion. Mix of an imaginary realism and childhood memories, these beings in levitation invite us to dream, limitlessly.
Shinya Arimoto
Arimoto, who was born in Osaka in 1971, currently resides and works in Tokyo. Arimoto, a 1994 graduate of Visual Arts Osaka, won the 35th Taiyo Award in 1998 for his piece "Portrait of Tibet." He started the Totem Pole Photo Gallery in 2008. In 2016, Arimoto collaborated with Zen Foto Gallery to publish "Tokyo Circulation," and in 2017, she was honored with the Photographic Society of Japan's Lifetime Achievement Award and the 26th Tadahiko Hayashi Award. His other works include "TIBET" and "ariphoto selection" (Nos. 1–10, Totem Pole Photo Gallery) (Zen Foto Gallery, 2019). He actively exhibits his work both inside and outside of Japan. In 2017, he held a solo exhibition at Le Plac'Art Photo in Paris, and in 2019, he took part in the group show "Am Rand der Gesellschaft. Barlach, Springer, Arimoto" at Museum Bautzen in Germany. Statement In 1994, while still in my early 20’s and fresh out of photo school I went to India to photograph. Six months into my travels the backpack in which I was keeping my exposed film – over 150 rolls – was stolen. This incident cast a dark shadow over my youth and ultimately signified a turning point in my understanding about photography which continues to this day. Even though I went to India determined to make photographs this event was the trigger for me to realize that essentially I was there sightseeing and made me question why I was even in India in the first place. It made me aware of the ambiguity of my determination (…). Soon after this I went to Nepal. With no set destination I happened to end up in Kathmandu. There, I encountered a Tibetan family on the roadside (…). My relationship with this family grew as we shared meals and our living space. In between mantra carving, I looked after the children when they played. Our time together was short yet it was a time of happiness. As the days passed I picked up bits of their language and began to feel a strong desire to see their homeland with my own eyes (..). In 1996, I set foot in Tibet. I’ll never forget that thrill. Everything that had happened so far – every coincidence, incident, and tribulation, had brought me to this point. (…) Looking back I realize that most of my twenties were spent with Tibet. Having started out as an empty vessel, it was Tibet and my experiences there that made me full.
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