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Win a Solo Exhibition in August! Juror Ann Jastrab, Executive Director, Center for Photographic Art
Win a Solo Exhibition in August! Juror Ann Jastrab, Executive Director, Center for Photographic Art
Sylwia Makris
Sylwia Makris
Sylwia Makris

Sylwia Makris

Country: Poland
Birth: 1973

There is a spark within everything. A living light in the eyes of a person, a memory that flares up, the glow of a passion that was never declared. A face always tells more than it knows, wich is why photography is never a mere reproduction of what is. A good photo tells what was, why might have been or what is waiting painfully beneath the surface.

Sylwia Makris has been in pursuit of these sparks since she first held a camera. Her quest produces images that may delight or disturb but always move the beholder. She photographs people. People who are strong or delicate, broken or dynamic. She photographs faces of our time-and in doing so gives a face to our time. Nakedness is the most natural state. And in our day the most intrusive and common-every-where naked bodies are used to tempt, advertise and sell. Nakedness can only say as much as it is allowed to say. Sylwia Makris respects the nude body as part of a story that must be told. As part of a story that tels of people, nakedness regains its original magic, its archaic power and its complexity of expression in Makris' photos.

Until the viewer sometimes feels more naked than the model in the image. Sylwia Makris was born in 1973 in Gdynia, Poland. She worked as a sculptor before finding her way to photography in 2007. Today she lives in Munich as freelance photographer.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Rineke Dijkstra
Netherlands
1959
Rineke Dijkstra was trained at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. Her first solo exhibition took place in 1984 at de Moor in Amsterdam. Dijsktra's photographs have appeared in numerous international exhibitions, including the 1997 and 2001 Venice Biennale, the 1998 Bienal de Sao Paulo, Turin's Biennale Internationale di Fotografia in 1999 and the 2003 International Center for Photography's Triennial of Photography and Video in New York. Solo exhibitions of her work have been shown at the Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Germany (2013), the Guggenheim Museum, New York (2012), the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2005), and the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (2001). She is the recipient of a number of awards, including the Kodak Award Nederland (1987), the Art Encouragement Award Amstelveen (1993), the Werner Mantz Award (1994), the Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize (1998), and the Macallan Royal Photography Prize (2012). Source: Marian Goodman Gallery Rineke Dijkstra was born in Sittard, the Netherlands, in 1959. She studied photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam from 1981 to 1986. Through the late 1980s, she photographed people in clubs for magazines in the Netherlands and worked for corporations as a portraitist. In 1990 she injured her hip when her car was struck by a bicycle. A self-portrait produced during her rehabilitation, in which she is seen having just emerged from a pool, exhausted, sparked a new direction in her work. Commissioned by a Dutch newspaper to make photographs based on the notion of summertime, Dijkstra took provocative photographs of adolescent bathers. These ultimately formed her breakthrough Beaches series (1992–96), which featured her young subjects in different locations in the United States and Europe. From this point on, people in transitional moments would be a major theme in her work. In 1994 she photographed mothers in the moments after giving birth and bullfighters about to enter the arena; she also commenced a series of images of Almerisa, an adolescent Bosnian refugee, whom she continued to photograph until 2003. Dijkstra ventured into video with The Buzz Club, Liverpool, UK/Mysteryworld, Zaandam, NL, taping adolescents at raves between 1996 and 1997. She has also focused on particular individuals entering the military, as in her images of Olivier Silva, a French Foreign Legionnaire (2000–01), and new inductees into the Israeli army (2002–03). For the series Park Portraits (2003–06), Dijkstra photographed children, adolescents, and teenagers momentarily suspending their varied activities to stare into the lens from scenic spots in Amsterdam’s Vondelpark, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, Madrid’s El Parque del Retiro, and Xiamen’s Amoy Botanical Garden, among others. Source: Guggenheim
Kristoffer Albrecht
Kristoffer Albrecht is a Finnish photographer, born in Helsinki, Finland in 1961. Albrecht lives in Ingå, Finland, and works as an independent photographer. His photographic work has been exhibited in his native Finland and internationally. Albrecht's work can be seen in collections at Helsinki’s Finnish Museum of Photography, Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, Moscow’s Pushkin Museum, Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and more. Albrecht has published some 30 books, among them Metropol (1998), Memorabilia (2004) and ZigZag in Europe (2009). Kristoffer Albrecht is represented in art museums and other public collections in Finland, France, Germany, Russia, Sweden, USA. Kristoffer Albrecht has been exhibiting both at home and abroad since 1983. Previously mentored by acclaimed Finnish photographer Pentti Sammallahti, Albrecht exhibited alongside Sammallahti at in the Print Sales Gallery in 2017. Near the Wind showcased a collaborative body of work specially commissioned by The Photographers’ Gallery. Albrecht has exhibited in solo and group shows across Finland, Russia, Demark, France, Spain and the US since 1983, and his works can be found in international public collections including the Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Modern Museet, Stockholm and The Pushkin Museum, Moscow. Making photobooks is an important means of his artistic expression; to date Albrecht has published some thirty photobooks, most recently Domestica (2018). He has been teaching photography and also conducting research in the field for several decades.Source: Invaluable
Marsel van Oosten
The Netherland
1967
Dutch-born Marsel van Oosten began his career in advertising. Photography started as a means of escaping fast-paced advertising life, but it was during a trip to Tanzania and close encounters with the animals of the Serengeti, where Marsel developed a passion for wildlife photography. Five years later, Marsel left advertising to become a full-time photographer and hasn’t looked back. Marsel’s images, which feature in galleries and museums across the globe, are famed for their composition, lighting, color and perspective. In his work, he tries to keep his images clean and uncluttered, enabling the viewer to focus on the image’s inherent graphic qualities. As a result, he has been decorated with many prestigious awards, including winning the overall titles for: Wildlife Photographer of the Year (Natural History Museum), Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY), and International Nature Photographer of the Year (2x in the International Photography Awards).Source: Nikon UK After graduating from the Academy of Arts with a BA in Art Direction and Graphic Design, Dutch-born Marsel van Oosten started a career in advertising. As an Art Director at various renowned agencies, he won numerous awards for his work, amongst which are one silver and two gold Lions at the prestigious International Advertising Festival in Cannes. The acclaimed TV commercial he made for a Dutch nature conservation organization is representative of both his creative and emotional approach to communication, as well as for his love for the natural world and his concern for the environment. Taking photographs began as a way for Marsel to escape from life in the fast lane. After a trip to Tanzania, however, things started getting more serious. Close encounters with the animals of the Serengeti fueled his passion for wildlife photography, which soon became his specialty. Five years later, Van Oosten took the plunge and swapped his established advertising career for the precarious life of a nature photographer, a move that demands unyielding devotion and commitment. His images are featured in galleries and museums, are used worldwide in advertising and design, and he is a regular contributor to National Geographic. When Marsel is not traveling, he lives in South Africa, with producer and videographer Daniella Sibbing. Together they run specialized nature photography tours for all experience levels to exciting destinations worldwide.Source: Squiver
Klavdij Sluban
France
1963
Klavdij SLUBAN, winner of the European Publishers Award for Photography 2009, of the Leica Prize (2004) and of the Niépce Prize (2000), main French prize in photography, Klavdij Sluban is a French photographer of Slovenian origin born in Paris in 1963. He develops a rigorous and coherent body of work, nourished by literature, never inspired by immediate and sensational current affairs, making him one of the most interesting photographers of his generation. The Balkans, the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Caribbean, Central America, Russia, China and the Antarctic (first artistic mission in the Kerguelen islands) can be read as many successive steps of an in-depth study of a patient proximity to the encountered real. His images have been shown in such leading institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Photography of Tokyo, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Rencontres d’Arles, the Museum of Photography in Helsinki, the Fine Arts Museum in Canton, the Musée Beaubourg, the Museum of Texas Tech University… His many books include East to East (published simultaneously by Actes Sud, Dewi Lewis, Petliti, Braus, Apeiron & Lunwerg with a text by Erri de Luca), Entre Parenthèses, (Photo Poche, Actes Sud), Transverses, (Maison Européenne de la Photographie) and Balkans -Transit, with a text by François Maspero (Seuil). Since 1995, Sluban has been photographing teenagers in jails. In each prison he organizes workshops with the young offenders to share his passion. First originated in France, in the prison of Fleury-Mérogis with support of Henri Cartier-Bresson during 7 years, as well as Marc Riboud and William Klein punctually. This commitment was pursued in the disciplinary camps of Eastern Europe –Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldavia, Latvia – and in the disciplinary centres of Moscow and St Petersburg as well as in Ireland. From 2007 to 2012, Sluban has been working in Central America with imprisoned youngsters belonging to maras (gangs) in Guatemala and Salvador. In 2015, he started photogrphing imprisoned teeangers in Brazil. In 2013, the musée Niépce showed a retrospective of K.Sluban’s work, After Darkness, 1995-2012. In 2015/16, he was awarded the Villa Kujoyama Residence in Kyoto, Japan. K.Sluban is member of national and international jurys, such as prix Niépce, prix de la Jeune Photographie de Niort, prix Leica, All About Photo…
Jennifer Baron
The Netherlands
1971
Jennifer Baron is a Dutch photographer based in Amsterdam. After many years in the field of education, she has decided to pursue her passion for photography. Her journey into the world of visual storytelling has culminated in the recent publication of her self published debut book, ‘Frozen August.’ ‘I translate my feelings in my work using universal themes that deal with grief, trauma, loss and healing. There is always an autobiographical element present. Making visible experiences, pain and traces left behind. In my work, abstraction alternates with intimacy and emotion.’ Statement Jennifer’s photographic work is a visual dance that encourages the viewer to explore the subtle balance between the intangible and the tangible, the distant and the immediate. It’s in the contrasting elements of her art that a strong feeling emerges, motivating people to explore their own feelings and experiences. She believes that black and white photography has a unique ability to capture the raw essence of human emotions and experiences. It gives the viewers the opportunity to fill in the colors of their own emotions and interpretations. Her work is deeply rooted in her personal experiences and emotions. ‘I translate my feelings in my work using universal themes that deal with grief, trauma, loss and healing. There is always an autobiographical element present. Making visible the experiences, the pain and the traces left behind. In my work, abstraction alternates with intimacy and emotion.’ Frozen August When you have experienced a loss, you can go a long time without dealing with it. You get carried away by everyday life. Suddenly that grief is there again. Why you can still grieve intensely even years after the death of a loved one. ‘My work gives an insight into my grieving process over the sudden death of my brother in August 1990. After 33 years of keeping silent about this, this wound is still so palpable. My world in darkness invites you to follow the trail of emotions. Body and nature become landscapes of mourning. Light and dark are about hope and despair. By combining various media; photography, sketches and publication book, my project Frozen August came about.’
Cédric Gerbehaye
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