Introducing curators and artists: part IV

Today we'd like to introduce our third and final guest curator, Nóra Barabás. She is a young artists currently living and studying in Hunagry and she has chosen photographs by Susan de Witt, Yulia Kazban and Rebecca Cairns.

The photos we included in these descriptions are examples of the photographers' work, but not the ones included in the exhibition, as only between one and two photographs per artist will be shown as part of this curator's presentation and we don't want to give too much away before the opening.

Nóra Barabás

Some of you may already be aware of Nóra's photographs as this will be the third time that she has collaborated with us in some way on the project; this time we have decided to give Nóra the opportunity to make her own selection. Nóra's photographs often depict how different emotional states affect our perception of the world, and how the external realities impact our feelings. Her images are contemplative and thoughtful, two qualities that extend into the works she selects as part of her online journals, where she pairs images, music and quotes in her "virtual" gallery.

You can see Nóra's photographs on her page where she also "curates" the work of others.

What do you look for in photographs?

I constantly look for inspirational pieces from other artists - pieces that speak to me, pieces I can relate to in some way or other. In photography and art in general I always look for that feeling and emotion that speak to me.

Why did you choose these specific artists?

The photographs I chose contain that certain emotion, depth, atmosphere that I aim to find, I feel there is a soul within. (Not to mention that I love the process/result - lith printing - Susan and Yulia work with.) 

There is actually a quote too that I just remembered, that answers why I selected these photographers and what their pieces mean to me after all: 

"What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.", from John Updike.


Susan de Witt

Susan de Witt is a photographer and lith print maker living in Portland, Oregon. Her work is best described by Tim Rudman, whom she has studied with over the years and whom she describes in turn as a leading authority on lith printing. "Susan de Witt uses photography, not as many do to record and reproduce what the camera sees, but to produce very personal images from her imagination. Her photographic prints may be built up from more than one view of the same object or by combining different subject matter to produce a final result that is greater than its constituent parts.

The surreal overtones in her images play both to the subconscious and to the imagination, telling us not what to see but inviting us to see in them what we find.

Her choice of the lith printing process to produce her multiple images presents her both with real technical challenges due to the nature of the process and significant aesthetic advantages as the distinctive visual properties of the lith prints produced in this way further removes her imagery from the realism of conventional photographic reproduction."

You can see Susan's images on her page.


Rebecca Cairns

Rebecca Cairns is a photographer based in Canada and working with traditional photography techniques - she works almost exclusively with black and white film. Even though Rebecca often models for her own images, she is rarely the subject. Using a variety of styles and techniques she is trying to capture something other than the image of a person.

Empty spaces and decaying rooms give a sense of loneliness and abandonment, coupled with the effects of movement and long and multiple exposures, her images are more the representation of dreams or the fleeting moments of emotions that make up our days as we pass through our lives and it's these that she is trying to capture on film and in stills. 

“My body of work attempts to explore dissociative states or ‘grey zones’ in our realities—a place between dreaming and waking life. It also explores how bodies interact with the environments that surround them.  

These are a collection of days, hours and minutes over the span of two years. I generally use photography as some kind of journal. I attempt to recreate dreams and visions, and to create something tangible that I am able to connect to in the most honest of ways.” 

Rebecca Cairns, VespeMagazine, 2013

You can see more of her photographs on her page and blog.

Yulia Kazban 

Yulia Kazban is a Ukrainian born photographer currently living and working in Moscow, Russia.Yulia usually works with film photography and prints her own images using a variety of traditional techniques.

As a visual artist, Yulia is reluctant to describe the process of her work or what meaning or context they may have to her, preferring to let the images speak to the viewer themselves:

It can influence the viewer or not. The viewer can feel the author's intention or not, can find something for himself or not, feel changes inside or not.

Often any description is superfluous.  I don't like to use words  for telling to the viewer  about specific context and hold him in the framework. I don't like to pull the work into an invented result.  If I want to create borders for viewer, I have to create those borders through my work, without instructions and descriptions.

We at the*kickplate*project agree with this sentiment and will therefore let Yulia's photography speak for itself.  You can find her images on her page and flickr.