PETRA COLLINS
Nationality: Canadian and Hungarian
City of Residence: New York
Profession: Photographer and Curator
“WOMEN´S EMOTIONS ARE CONSTANTLY LABELLED. ANY SLIGHT DEVIATION FROM SO-CALLED PLEASANTNESS, AND WE ARE LABELLED AS HYSTERICAL”
As a young woman, Petra Collins wanted to experience and create work that could inspire and empower her femininity. She never found what she was looking for, so the idea of starting a platform that would allow young female artists to collaborate and get their work published started shaping in her head. In 2011 she took action and founded The Ardorous – a female art collective.
Petra’s own photographic work is distinctive in style and easy to recognize. Her images are colorful and often contain her trademark-hues, but they are also full of soft light and blurred colors. Her style is raw and realistic, yet sensual and toned down. This year she ranked as number 10 in Dazed & Calvin Klein´s “100 Creatives Shaping Youth Culture”, listed as one of Vogue´s “40 Creatives to Watch” in 2016 – and chosen as one of “30 Artists to Watch” by Artsy.
Apart from debuting as a model for Gucci this year, the multi-talented creative is a frequent photographer for publications such as Vogue, Purple Magazine, i-D Magazine, Wonderland Magazine, Dazed & Confused, L´Officiel, Elle and Love Magazine. She also collaborates with brands like Gucci, Levi´s, Adidas, Cos, Calvin Klein and Stella McCartney.
Her book Babe was awarded “Best Photography Book of 2015” by New York Times while her ongoing series Selfie, started in 2013, examines the power of selfie culture in teenage girlhood.
CHARLIE ENGMAN
Nationality: American
City of Residence: New York
Profession: Photographer
“PHOTOGRAPHY IS AN EXPEDIENT WAY TO COPY AND MOLD SOME VERSIONS OF REALITY”
With his investigative approach to picture making, Charlie Engman creates images that seem like conceptual and visual solutions to formal problems. He often pushes the visual possibilities in his productions, and experiments with elements such as the models, costumes, light, environment, graphic design and post-production. His work has appeared in magazines like AnOther, Dazed & Confused, The New York Times Style Magazine, American Vogue, POP and Garage and he has collaborated with Stella McCartney, Hermès, Lacoste, Vivienne Westwood, and Kenzo.
Partly due to his professional background in theatre and dance, Charlie Engman initially started to use photography as a technique to collect information. With great insight in visual and sculptural movement and gesture, he created the notable Domestic Diorama, which is a series of abstracted body studies where the viewer is invited into his naked universe. The photographer also included himself as a model in this project.
“I photographed myself naked, so I thought to myself: why not my mother too?” From then on the two of them started to work together and his mother has now become his muse.
SYNCHRODOGS
TANIA SHCHEGLOVA + ROMAN NOVEN
Nationalities: Ukrainians
City of Residence: “We are residents of the world”
Professions: Artists and Photographers
“WE FIND INSPIRATION IN EVERYDAY LIFE. THE NATURAL WORLD, INTUITION, NIGHT DREAMS.”
Since the artist duo began their professional life together in 2008, they have dived below the surface to explore the subconscious. Their work often reflects moods and elements from endless landscapes and nighttime dreams. They have even developed a meditation technique in order to connect on a deeper, artistic level.
The duo also finds inspiration in nudity and people’s eccentricities. They mix Western, Ukrainian and Byzantine tradition with references to folklore and native art. The main interest of Synchrodogs lies in awakening the primitive instincts inside the spectator and provoking animalistic behavior and emotions. They aim to inspire the embrace of natural beauty, intuition and freedom of the fear of being misinterpreted by others.
The duo has participated as artists in numerous solo exhibitions and group exhibitions internationally. Their work has been published in magazines such as Vice, AnOther, Esquire and Vogue, and they have collaborated with brands like Kenzo, Marni and Bimba y Lola.
Working in two different fields is something that Synchrodogs sees as an advantage. For them, “Art” means total freedom, while “Fashion” is considered to be more like an exercise for their brains.
AMANDA CHARCHIAN
Nationality: Iranian and American
City of Residence: Los Angeles and London
Profession: Photographer and Fine Artist
“I AM INTERESTED IN INTIMACY. POSSIBILITIES OF THE UNKNOWN, THE POTENTIAL HUMOR IN EVERYTHING, THE PERFECT BALANCE OF NATURE”
Intimacy is what best describes Amanda Charchian’s vision as an artist. Her focus lies in the possibilities of the unknown, the potential humor in everything and the perfect balance of nature.
Her definition of beauty is “the uninhibited combined with grace” and she is naturally inspired by other women. She continuously reflects on the particular connection she believes that women share among themselves. The line between her art and commercial work is often blurred. To her fashion might come off as art and artworks can feel like mass produced products – all depending on conceptual depth and artistic touch.
Her work has been exhibited all over the world and been featured in publications such as New York Magazine, Vogue Italia, Vogue Spain, The Huffington Post, Interview, L´Officiel ART, i-D Magazine, Purple, and Oyster Magazine. She has also collaborated with the likes of Vivienne Westwood, & Other Stories, Michael van der Ham and STAUD.
Amanda Charchian has a deep urge to express herself through her work, and the idea of vulnerability as a strength, is her main theme.
ARIELLE CHIARA
Nationality: American
City of Residence: Los Angeles
Profession: Artist
“I ENJOY PHOTOGRAPHY AS A POINT OF ENTRY TO A SPACE CREATED WITHIN AN IMAGE, A FEELING SPACE”
The key to comprehend Arielle Chiara’s experimental art is to see it as fluid. Whether she captures rock formations or iridescent fish scales, Chiara seeks out the harmony in whatever she creates through her lens.
Arielle Chiara has an original approach to her portrayal of the human form. Together with Zoe Bleu and Darius Khonsarythe she experiments freely in their art collective and label Nautae. Curiosity drives her to explore the fractionally related terrains of art and fashion before she reflects on the interconnections and communicates her relationship with the body.
Arielle Chiara translates her perceptions to abstracted forms materialized by natural elements such as hair, salt and fingernails, to complement the human body. She disguises her sculptures in mystery, an abstract veil which seem to dominate her artistry.
On Arielle Chiara’s Instagram account @_n__arcis_s___u________s, texture is easily recognized as a central element of her visual identity. Perfectly visualized in the juxtaposition of liquid-like silks against coarse rock, her visual language sets off mental connections culminating in thoughts about the human body. In spite of her rawness and demanding area of focus, her followers end up wanting more.
LEA COLOMBO
Nationality: South African
City of Residence: Paris, France
Profession: Photographer
“I JUST TRY AND CAPTURE THE MOOD. I ALSO NEVER SHOOT FLASH, ONLY NATURAL LIGHT — AND I THINK THAT MAKES A BIT OF A DIFFERENCE”
The self-taught photographer’s distinctive cinematic style is easily recognized through her pictures, saturated with color, shot only with natural light and dominated by a characteristic edge. When Lea Colombo first came to Paris she developed her personal style by assisting other photographers while shooting her own stuff on the side. When she got offered to shoot backstage at the runway shows for Dazed & Confused the snowball started rolling.
Lea Colombo moved to the city of fashion four and a half years ago and has since her quite random relocation from the South to the North shot for magazines like Dazed & Confused, Marfa Journal, i-D, Interview, Under the Influence, Sunday Times Style Magazine, SSAW, Elle UK, and Elle China. She has also collaborated with ACNE Studios, Y/Project and Self-Portrait Resort 2016.
Lea Colombo identifies her main inspiration as “life itself”. This quite enormous definition basically involves people, details from her everyday surroundings and definitely; the joys she finds in traveling. Her photographs span from landscapes, intimate portraits of models, skateboarders in Moscow, or haute couture fashion. The only constant is her central technique of juxtaposing chaos and stillness.
ISABELITAVIRTUAL
Nationality: Spanish
City of Residence: Barcelona and New York
Profession: Creative Director and Photographer
“I’M USED TO WORK WITH WORDS AND CONCEPTS AND APPLY THIS MENTAL PROCESS TO MY INSTAGRAM PICTURES THROUGH TITLES WITH DEEPER MEANINGS OR LITTLE TWISTS TO MAKE MY FOLLOWERS SMILE”
Isabel Martinez knows exactly how to move in the virtual universe of the Internet to capture attention. Her highly conceptual artwork has obtained tremendous popularity and recognition on the most important online image-sharing social network of our time – Instagram.
After a comfortable career for more than ten years in advertising, Isabel Martinez decided to pursue her passion and her highly creative ambitions for the visual universe on her Instagram account @IsabelitaVirtual. The bold career move paid off and her success is clearly reflected in the current number of Instagram followers – no less than 723.000 people!
Her unique artistic skills both as a creative director and an image maker, have resulted in collaborations with brands like Hermès, Viktor&Rolf, Tiffany & Co and Sony. The custom made, influential and aesthetically strong statements of Isabel Martinez get noticed and respected by people and companies who want to really stand out in the high-speed, continually changing virtual landscape that Instagram now has become.
