Andrea Zvadova & Louis De Belle
Close-up photographs of details, enriched by distinctive and wavy colour palettes offer us a proximity to the other, that during the current social distancing we dearly miss.
PHOTO MEET & NORTHERN NARRATIVES discuss with photographers Andrea Zvadova and Louis De Belle.
Andrea Zvadova “Wet Hair”
Louis De Belle “Cartographies”
Andrea Zvadova “Wet Hair”
Louis De Belle “Cartographies”
Hi Andrea and Hi Louis, when we looked at your submissions we felt immediately overwhelmed by an explosion of colour and irreverent grace. Your series are tight and bold, very specific and yet they hold the power to evoke much more than what they show. We are intrigued to know more about the context and how you developed your work and if both series had a precise outcome in mind such as a show or a book…?
ANDREA ZVADOVA - Hi Mimi, thank you for your lovely comments on my work. I was very impressed and moved by Louis’s series and am very pleased with the idea of our works being visual parallels in your selection. It is definitely the detail and focus on an unusual artefacts that I find very intriguing. I have always been interested in going into detail, getting closer to the object, observation and transformation of your perception. I find it as a form of discovering new worlds and landscapes of your own fantasy, closer detail reveals another universe within itself.
I would love to exhibit my hair series in large scale. They were shot on medium format and they can be printed in quite a significant size. There you can observe even more, what your bare eyes can’t capture.
LOUIS DE BELLE - To the point, 'irreverent grace' is actually a great description for the work. The photographs from Cartographies were shot in New York during a boiling hot summer. I was there for an artist residency and was asked to come up with a series of photographs that would depict a local topic, avoiding cliches and well-known subjects. I wanted to deal with ordinary subjects, something that anyone could understand and reconnect to. Yet I was eager to depict it in an unusual way. That's how I ended up shooting close-up photographs of people's torsos, diving into the folds of their clothing. The outcome is a series of almost monochrome images. Hence I already knew I'd have to show them as large prints, in which one could appreciate both the fine detail but also the whole color field. The idea of turning the series into a book came later on, after meeting with french designer Claire Huss, who cleverly put together an idea for a publication that we're about to kick-off.
Andrea, your decision to work with wet hair allows you to create some striking close-up images of which the aestethic value jumps straight to the eye. Hair is also traditionally associated with self-expression and wet hair mixed with shampoo convey the idea of self-care. Would we be right in assuming that your underlying aim is to celebrate some sense of self-value?
This series were a continuation of my previous work with a very talented hair stylist Kieran Tudor. I was approached by Beauty Papers if I could create a similar idea of hair details I did previously in a wet foamy form. We had a freedom in our creativity, which is always a great thing. It was something me and Kieran had already in mind before. I wanted to create this visceral hair imagery that pops out of the screen or print and feels very much alive like it was right in front of you. I was not looking for a perfection, more for the very vivid feel of the organic structure becoming alive in front of your eyes. In a way I could call it is a self-care series, observing your own hair and feeling attached to your crown. We all can relate to this topic, hair has been strangely playing a very strong role through out the history of mankind. It gives us character and can alter our personality. I find that very fascinating.
How are you coping with the sudden lack of professional opportunities and social distancing?
I think I have been lucky enough to be in a company with an incredible person who has a slightly similar creative work and that no one close to us has been going through really tough times or being ill. As being a slight introvert and having working from home previously, I guess it wouldn’t have such a drastic impact on me like on some other people in completely different set up.
Somehow I enjoy the peaceful days, not too much noise from the constant planes above our heads, no rushing. The weather has been fantastic and that helped to keep the spirits above the level.
I had to think outside the box how to change my work and what could I create and focus on within the limitations. Normally I would work with people, capturing the details of the skin, make-up. That wouldn’t work at all and may not for a while. I decided to work on more still life work in a crammed conditions, hopefully this will be a fruitful time for me and many other creatives. Now we don’t need to compare ourselves to others, we have our own head spaces and time to focus on our ideas.
Obviously there are up and downs and I miss a lot of my friends. I miss all the travelling, going to places, things we took for granted before. I find the time I spent chatting with friends online incredibly enriching and can’t wait till we can properly hang out together.
Louis, your work has wit, irony and it reminds us all that the winning ingredients behind an eloquent series of photographs rely on simplicity and a mind free from restrains. Could Cartographies be interpreted as concise commentary on work life in western society?
Definitely. Although I didn't have that clear in mind while shooting the series, the resulting work does convey a certain feeling of work life in western society. From the pinstripe suit of a Wall street employee down (or up) to the orange t-shirt of a MTA worker, Cartographies tell us about people, their jobs and their daily routines… yet in a rather minimalistic, if not even abstract, manner. It's hard to have a mind free from restrains, yet I always strive for going straight to the point, true to the work's concept.
Do you have the intention of extending this series of do you see this as a finished product?
Good question. I must confess, I tried to extend the series in other cities and… it actually didn't work that well! So I feel like this series is complete. It has its own right balance of colours, folds, creases and a pinch of sweat!
Are you finding new creative approaches during this lockdown?
It's a hard time, but we photographers have the luck of being somehow capable of working even during a lockdown, in a few square meters. Although I didn't actually discover a new approach, I've just had the chance to reconsider my workflow and rethink how I could improve it. I guess many of us lived this momentum, in which you start valuing things you gave for granted up until now in a different way. And that's probably a great side effect of the hard times we're living in.
