introducing 'dall'Esterno' artists: Alexandra Şoman

Alexandra Şoman is a Romanian photographer born in Timișoara, currently living in Cluj-Napoca and studying psychology. 

Alexandra takes digital photos and often arranges them into diptychs and kaleidoscopes. The subject she explores most often in her recent work is city life and interactions between people and public spaces.

Through the use of long exposures and by placing her subjects out of focus, Alexandra renders the experience of urban alienation and captures fleeting signs of human presence in otherwise empty streets. A recurrent theme in Alexandra's photographs is the question of identity in a big city - people only appear in passing, they do not seem to own or inhabit the spaces that they live in, but merely travel through them. 

Alexandra's photography is prevalently black and white, and when she uses colour it's often the orange glow of street lamps and headlights that deepen the feeling of non-belonging of people lost by the roadside and in the city streets.

You can find more of Alexandra's photos on her page.

introducing 'dall'Esterno' artists: Stanka Koleva

Stanka Koleva is a Bulgarian photographer currently living and working in Berlin, Germany. 

 

She was born and raised in the town of Bourgas and in the year 2000 she took up photography.

Working with film, medium format cameras and printing the images herself using the gelatin silver process and often expired paper, Stanka creates dream-like, provocative and multi layered images, full of light, fluidity and movement. Often ambiguous in their meaning, Stanka's photos leave the interpretation up to the viewer. 

In her own words she explains the concepts in her work: "I believe Art is the purest way to understanding and depicting our inner selves as well as the aspects of Cosmic Life. Human nature and mutual relations are aspects on which I rely to do my work, along with intuition, which is the most important part of an artistic act."

You can find more of Stanka's  photographs in her portfolio and on flickr.

introducing 'dall'Esterno' artists: Marina Frolova

Marina Frolova is a Ukrainian photographer based in Sevastopol. 

In her work, Marina draws on the aesthetics of old studio photography, intertwining them with elements of theatre and burlesque, as well as mythical motives, which give Marina’s images a surreal atmosphere. 

Using several different layers in her images, Marina creates photographs that have a three-dimensional quality of a diorama, and a depth that draws the viewer in, which makes her photographs both lifelike and unreal. This impression is further deepened by the red and blue hues and aquatic imagery, another recurrent theme in Marina’s work. 

Some of the characters in her photos are also portrayed with attributes which seem to belong to her own individual set of symbols, a personal mythology.  

Marina is part of a Ukrainian photography collective, UPHA. You can find more of her images in her portfolio and on UPHA's page. There is also more information about the projects she participated in here.

introducing 'dall'Esterno' artists: Yulia Kazban

Yulia Kazban is a Ukrainian-born photographer currently living and working in Moscow, Russia. 

Yulia works with film photography and prints her own images using a variety of traditional techniques which give many of her images a feel of old illustrations. She works with a variety of subjects, from portrait through landscape, cityscape and still life to abstract. 

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 themselves or not, feel changes inside or not. 

Often any description is superfluous. I don't like to use words for telling the viewer about the specific context and hold them in the framework. I don't like to pull the work into an invented result.  If I want to create borders for the 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.