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FINAL DAYS TO WIN A SOLO EXHIBITION IN MAY 2026
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Mariëtte Aernoudts
Mariëtte Aernoudts
Mariëtte Aernoudts

Mariëtte Aernoudts

Country: Netherlands
Birth: 1956

My name is Mariëtte Aernoudts and since 9 years I am a self thought photographer/ imagemaker. Most of my portraits are from children or young people and always in colour. I work very intuitive and during a shoot my ideas are becoming unstoppable. Except my portraits I create my own imaginary world using my storytelling images. I try to soften the realistic life. I am always looking for renewal, with my own feelings which I want to connect in my photos.

I received several dutch prizes and in 2018 I won an award in SIPA contest Siena Italy. Last February one of my photos was nominated for the Sony World Photography awards.

My Statement: 'What I see is what you get'
 

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Guillermo Espinosa
Guillermo Espinosa is a Spanish photographer born in Madrid in 1985 and currently based in Berlin. He studied Graphic arts and wine making in Madrid. He started in photography around 7 years ago, making pictures in the streets of Madrid with an old reflex camera. Later on he moved to Germany to work as a waiter. It was then when he saw the potential of street photography as a way to grow personally and escape from the routine. Since then he has combined his job as a waiter with some jobs related to photography such as Cruiseship photographer or photographer for a german decoration shop. He is currently involved in a few ongoing street photography projects in the city of Berlin. Statement My artwork is about the relation between the human being and the public enviroment, searching for the insual in the usual or mundane. Trying to find candid moments in the dalily life using what the enviroment gives me, such a light, subjects, geometry, etc. Another distinguising feature is the friction created by the layers (physical or conceptual). I have been always attracted by the contrasts that happen in everyday life, the juxtaposition in any "normal" situation that can create many humoristic, visual or critic lectures. Even a frontal shot of a character on the street can be read in many different ways depending on the viewer, place or epoque. My main aproach is to create a connection with the viewer that can go beyond the aesthetics, making an image more than a 2D object that comfrontes the previous concept of the daily life
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Astrid Verhoef is a fine art photographer based in Amsterdam. She graduated from the Arts Academy “Hoogeschool voor de Beeldende Kunsten Utrecht” in 1998. Astrid started as a classic landscape photographer, inspired by photographers like Ansel Adams, but gradually felt the need to express herself differently, in a manner that more reflected her imagination and creativity. She started building a new portfolio around 2007, and by 2010 she had fully adopted the theatrical visual language we can recognise in her photography today. Her work can since be defined as surreal compositions, showing figures and objects that seem to be at odds with the desolate environments they find themselves in. Astrid aims to emphasize the contrast between the human presence and the landscape, while exploring her personal relationship with the natural world. Throughout her career Astrid also worked as a curator, and has produced exhibitions in New York, Amsterdam, Leiden and Tokyo. She’s collaborated with Photoville New York and was a program manager and curator for photography platform Photo31 from 2018 until 2024. But her main focus will always be her autonomous artwork which leads her to magnificent landscapes, from The Netherlands and Spain to Australia and the USA, to explore her personal relationship with the natural world. Astrid usually works solo and therefore is also the model in most of her images. If needed she uses basic collage techniques in her artworks top achieve the desired image, but she never adds any components by using AI. The props and figures are all actually photographed, which makes every artwork a cherished memory as well. Astrid’s artworks have been internationally awarded, and have been exhibited in London, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Berlin, Cannes, Milan, New York, Paris, Rotterdam, Sydney, and Tokyo. Her artwork is included in the collection of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris. Statement: As a fine art photographer Astrid Verhoef explores her personal connection to the natural world. The complicated relationship between human and nature is a common thread throughout her work, from the ‘Inscapes’ and ‘Human//Nature’ series up to the more recent single images. When she photographs herself in these desolate landscapes an anonymous character arises that wants to connect with her surroundings. However, her roots in contemporary modern life often remain visible in the form of an unnatural element. The serene images can be seen as emotional translations where the desire for synergy is challenged by an urge to control. The long-term project 'Human//Nature' is a logical continuation of Verhoef’s well known 'Inscapes' series. With an increasing minimal visual language and a more geometrical approach to composition, she aims to emphasize the contrast between the human presence and the natural. With her latest work, At the same time she wants to create moments or scenes that can only exist because of the combination of the two. Her theatrical photography is also an ode to imagination itself. For these images Astrid Verhoef works solo on location, all elements are photographed and she acts as a model in her own images. These images do not contain any AI generated components. Only basic Photoshop tools were used, such as color /contrast adjustments, collage technique (if needed). Astrid Verhoef has photographed on locations in Australia (Northern Territory, Southern & West Australia), Spain (mainland & Canary Islands), USA (Utah, Nevada, Arizona & California) and The Netherlands.
Marina Lauar
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1993
Marina Lauar is a Brazilian visual artist. She develops her artwork in Fine Art Photography, where she uses a pictorial language to construct of her narratives. As a plural artist she appropriates elements that expand formal photography and allow the mix of printed photography with other gestures and techniques. She finds in the portrait an appropriate field for her discussions and critical reflection, which she builds through minimalist and potent images. Her research currently circulates between the deconstruction of already rooted stereotypes and her own self-perception. About Plastic Portraits The project was born during my renaissance as an artist. After some time feeling completely blocked, hands, feet, head, and heart tied, I found myself in a huge need to express my concerns through photography. Fine Art Photography is a fertile field that allows the cultivation of reflections and dialogues, so I chose it as language, to be the home of my yearnings. I create portraits aiming to deconstruct beliefs, sometimes using satire, sometimes critical reflections and their depths, sometimes pure intimacy, things that will never be said. The atmosphere is reaffirmed by the way I work with the light. I seek minimalism so that only a key element fulfils its role as a critical factor in the image. My principal goal with this project is to traverse. Conceive feelings, make the feeling palpable. Build next to portrayed the script that will guide us in the production of the pictures, in the choice of the element, so that everything there in that image has great strength and meaning to the portrayed. To emanate with my eyes feelings that overflow in the other.
Eva Chupikova
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Eva is a freelance illustrator and photographer based in Czechia. She was born and grew up in the mountainous region in Northern Slovakia and after earning her degree in philosophy, she went on to establish a career as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator specializing in children´s literature. Eva has been intimately connected with photography since 2016. Her body of work falls under the genre of fine art portrait and minimalist landscape photography. A minimalist approach, the absence of colors, the emphasis on space and texture connected with a sometimes near blank canvas provide Eva the necessary means to visually express herself creatively. “As a photographer, I seek beauty in basic geometric lines and shapes, which are bound in harmony with the elusive variability and diversity of natural, organic forms. Photography, for me, is a means of capturing a distilled version of reality. It serves as a tool to seek out and unveil purified connections, free from the noise of superficial information and stimuli that inundate our senses and experiences. Through the lens, I strive to isolate and reveal the essential elements that might otherwise go unnoticed in the chaos of everyday life. Each image crafted is a deliberate act of reducing distractions, allowing viewers to immerse themselves in the simplicity and harmony of the moment.“ Eva´s conceptual portrait/self-portrait photography is closely intertwined with her profession as an illustrator. Through the use of techniques such as line work, drawing or collage, she is able to infuse her portraits with surreal and symbolic elements, blurring the lines between reality and imaginary. The main theme of Eva´s portrait photography is a figure or face reduced in expression, and it serves as an initial frame, against which a fleeting moment of consciousness takes place in hints. As a photographer, Eva finds herself drawn to creating series rather than single images. A series provides her with the opportunity to develop her concepts and articulate her aesthetic visions across a sequence of complementary images. By developing a series, Eva weaves together a visual theme that transcends the limitations of a single photograph, allowing to express her photographic intention in a more nuanced way. Eva has received numerous international awards and her work has been featured in various magazines. In 2022, Eva was awarded the grand prize – the ´Grand Prix Gold Star Award´ – for the series ´Leaving´ in the prestigious international ND Photography Awards for which Eva received the title ND Discovery of the Year 2022.
Graciela Iturbide
Graciela Iturbide was born in 1942 in Mexico City. In 1969 she enrolled at the age of 27 at the film school Centro de Estudios Cinematográficos at the Universidad Nacional Autónama de México to become a film director. However she was soon drawn to the art of still photography as practiced by the Mexican modernist master Manuel Alvarez Bravo who was teaching at the University. From 1970-71 she worked as Bravo's assistant accompanying him on his various photographic journeys throughout Mexico. In the early half of the 1970s, Iturbide traveled widely across Latin America in particular to Cuba and several trips to Panama. In 1978 Graciela Iturbide was commissioned by the Ethnographic Archive of the National Indigenous Institute of Mexico to photograph Mexico's indigenous population. Iturbide decided to document and record the way of life of the Seri Indians, a group of fisherman living a nomadic lifestyle in the Sonora desert in the north west of Mexico, along the border with Arizona, US. In 1979 she was invited by the artist Francisco Toledo to photograph the Juchitán people who form part of the Zapotec culture native to Oaxaca in southern Mexico. Iturbide's series that started in 1979 and runs through to 1988 resulted in the publication of her book Juchitán de las Mujeres in 1989. Between 1980 and 2000, Iturbide was variously invited to work in Cuba, East Germany, India, Madagascar, Hungary, Paris and the US, producing a number of important bodies of work. She has enjoyed solo exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou (1982), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1990), Philadelphia Museum of Art (1997), The J. Paul Getty Museum (2007), MAPFRE Foudation, Madrid (2009), Photography Museum Winterthur (2009), and Barbican Art Gallery (2012), between others. Iturbide is the recipient of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Foundation Award, 1987; the Grand Prize Mois de la Photo, Paris, 1988; a Guggenheim Fellowship for the project 'Fiesta y Muerte', 1988; the Hugo Erfurth Award, Leverkusen, Germany, 1989; the International Grand Prize, Hokkaido, Japan, 1990; the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie Award, Arles, 1991; the Hasselblad Award, 2008; the National Prize of Sciences and Arts in Mexico City in 2008; an Honorary Degree in photography from the Columbia College Chicago in 2008; and an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2009.Source: www.gracielaiturbide.org Graciela Iturbide photographs everyday life, almost entirely in black-and-white, following her curiosity and photographing when she sees what she likes. She was inspired by the photography of Josef Koudelka, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sebastiao Salgado and Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Her self-portraits especially reflect and showcase Bravo's influence and play with innovation and attention to detail. Iturbide eschews labels and calls herself complicit with her subjects. With her way of relating to those she is photographing, she is said to allow her subjects to come to life, producing poetic portraits. She became interested in the daily life of Mexico's indigenous cultures and people (the Zapotec, Mixtec, and Seri) and has photographed life in Mexico City, Juchitán, Oaxaca and on the Mexican/American border (La Frontera). With focus on identity, sexuality, festivals, rituals, daily life, death, and roles of women, Iturbide's photographs share visual stories of cultures in constant transitional periods. There's also juxtaposition within her images between urban versus rural life, and indigenous versus modern life. Iturbide's main concern has been the exploration and investigation of her own cultural environment. She uses photography as a way of understanding Mexico; combining indigenous practices, assimilated Catholic practices and foreign economic trade under one scope. Art critic, Oscar C. Nates, has describes Iturbide's work as "anthropoetic." Iturbide has also photographed Mexican-Americans in the White Fence (street gang) barrio of Eastside Los Angeles as part of the documentary book A Day in the Life of America (1987). She has worked in Argentina (in 1996), India (where she made her well-known photo, "Perros Perdidos" (Lost Dogs)), and the United States (an untitled collection of photos shot in Texas). One of the major concerns in her work has been "to explore and articulate the ways in which a vocable such as 'Mexico' is meaningful only when understood as an intricate combination of histories and practices." She is a founding member of the Mexican Council of Photography. She continues to live and work in Coyoacán, Mexico. In awarding her the 2008 Hasselblad Award, the Hasselblad Foundation said: "Graciela Iturbide is considered one of the most important and influential Latin American photographers of the past four decades. Her photography is of the highest visual strength and beauty. Graciela Iturbide has developed a photographic style based on her strong interest in culture, ritual and everyday life in her native Mexico and other countries. Iturbide has extended the concept of documentary photography, to explore the relationships between man and nature, the individual and the cultural, the real and the psychological. She continues to inspire a younger generation of photographers in Latin America and beyond." Some of Iturbide's recent work documents refugees and migrants. In her work Refugiados (2015), offers a stark contrast between love and family and danger and violence showing a smiling mother holding her child in front of a hand-painted mural of Mexico dotted with safety and danger zones. The largest institutional collection of Iturbide's photographs in the United States is preserved at the Wittliff collections, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX.Source: Wikipedia
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