Oliver Valsecchi, born in Paris in 1979, now lives and works in Toulouse, where he studied at ETPA Photography School in 2007.

As a teenager, Oliver’s main interest was music, through which he discovered photography after taking photos to illustrate his record sleeves, although before enrolling in photography school, he explored the medium by taking self-portraits. 

During his academic years, Oliver could experiment with light and the human body, which later became the outburst of his work. In 2010, his series Dust got him noticed and won him the Hasselblad Masters Award in 2012. Inspired by the chaos theory, this series depicts evanescences from Renaissance’s chiaroscuro. His twisted bodies are draped in a cloud of dust, giving them a surreal,nebula-like aspect, a symbol of birth and death. 

 

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Un post condiviso da Olivier Valsecchi (@oliviervalsecchi)

 

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Un post condiviso da Olivier Valsecchi (@oliviervalsecchi)

 

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Un post condiviso da Olivier Valsecchi (@oliviervalsecchi)

Photographic Career and Series

Following the Dust series, Oliver will later come to a magnificent reflection of the human body through many other bodies of work. Composition, geometry, psychology, philosophy, and empathy are all echoed in his characters. Oliver attempts to portray human sentiments through their bodies, where light plays an influential role too. He adjusts the right tunes and attitude through shadows and contrasts as if composing music. 

Light and body are Oliver’s tools to depict humans’ delicate, captivating and profound nature. 

From planning to composing, from choosing the subject to the photo shoot, Oliver relies on instinct and intuition. As his images evoke death, birth, and maternity, all inevitable human conditions, he allows his inspiration to move with the same natural flow.

 

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Un post condiviso da Olivier Valsecchi (@oliviervalsecchi)

 

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Un post condiviso da Olivier Valsecchi (@oliviervalsecchi)

Read similar artist’s stories on Hue&Eye >>>

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Ruslan Khasanov (1987), is a visual artist from Yekaterinburg, Russia. His work is driven by the motto “Beauty is everywhere,” which Ruslan expresses in digital photographs, music videos, typography, and illustrations.

Working Attitude and Creative Views

At the heart of Ruslan’s work is the desire to show the synergy between art, science, and design, to enhance the fact that these disciplines are not separated by academism but can be organized in work with mutual reinforcement.

The ability to express strong emotions through visual art, experimentation and improvisation plays a central role in his creative process.

Khasanov keeps to himself, rarely attending social events or public lectures. He says he’s happiest when working from home, where he wanders around, talking through his ideas out loud. Notes, sketches, papers, and books are scattered everywhere. “Movement helps me concentrate,” he explains. “That’s the working method which helps me feel comfortable and confident, so I don’t even think about going to communal workspaces.”

Khasanov is the stereotype of the reclusive artist, who prefers to sit in his studio, and likes to work in isolation. This preference for solitude is not helped because he works with clients in different time zones. Work and communication with clients mainly take place at night, he says. His most artistic designs inspire when he hits a creative brick wall with one of his commissions.

“To refresh my mind, I start doing my projects.”

Despite liking impermanence, his ambition is to find success in a much more fixed medium by emulating a particular design hero of his. “Sometimes, when sitting in front of the screen, I think of William Morris,” he says. “I’d love to see some of my works as wallpaper one day. Only if the results are as outstanding as his, of course.”

To view more of his work, go here.

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BMJ is a Seattle-based artist specializing in abstract photography, a distinctive technique often incorporating motion and camera to create and capture art. BMJ uses a peculiar procedure called ICM, or Intentional Camera Movement. Combined with various times and editing processes, one immerses in a visually and emotionally engaging experience. We recently had an exclusive interview with BMJ in which he tells more about his exciting art technique and life. Enjoy reading the entire article to find inspiration!

Let’s start from the basics. What’s your name, and where have you grown up?

As an artist, I go by BMJ, and where I spent my time growing up is a complex story. To simplify, I was born in California and spent most of my life on the move, growing up between the states of California and Washington (where I currently reside).

When or how have you understood you wanted to become an artist?

As a child, whenever I created art, it was the only time I recall receiving positive reinforcement, the kind that makes one think, “maybe that’s who I’ll be when I grow up.” And if I’m honest, creating art was more about escaping life; it was about getting lost in a moment in time where I finally felt adequate, confident, and joyful.

So when the time came for me to live independently, I headed off to art college, hoping to become an artist, and I left as a designer. The pressure to earn a living became overwhelming during that journey, and becoming a designer felt more attainable and prosperous. And even after twenty-plus successful years as a designer, the desire to pursue art has never faded.

Can you briefly describe your technique and tell us what drives you to make art?

When asked about the types of paints and brushes used while creating my art, those inquiring are often surprised when I tell them the camera is the brush, the screens the canvas, and anything visible through the camera’s lens becomes the paint. And that surprise is often followed by intrigue after sharing that I also do not use digital brushes, textures, blur, or distortion effects.

My technique is simple. I combine slow-shutter speeds with intentional camera movement (ICM). After which, I apply various photo editing explorations unique to each photo. Recognizing when you have captured something special, knowing just how far to take the color explorations, and knowing where to crop the image is where the process becomes complex.

And to date, everything created has been done using only an iPhone, and I refer to this type of art as Abstract iPhoneography.

The drive behind my creations comes from being neurodivergent with invisible disabilities and needing a way to manage in a world where I do not feel I belong. I find peace within the process, and the results provide a sense of familiarity and comfort as if I have found my place in this world.

What is the main feature that has changed in your works or practice throughout the years?

My focus while growing up was always on drawing. It wasn’t until 6 or 7 years ago, when I unknowingly took a picture with my phone in motion, that I discovered abstract photography. When I stopped to look at that photograph, all I could see was the art hidden within the chaos of the blurred image. And it was at that moment I realized that I had found my place in the art world.

Which artist primarily inspires your work? And is there something else, outside visual arts, that keeps you motivated?

That first question is challenging, as there are so many amazing artists in the world, past and present. And I would have to say the works of Helen Frankenthaler, Wassily Kandinsky, and William de Kooning have been the most inspiring throughout my life.

And, if I’m honest, I find the same level of inspiration in everything I see in everyday life. For me, it’s challenging to look at something, anything, and not immediately imagine what I could create with it.

Outside of visual arts, hands down, my wife and children are my biggest motivations. I want them to be proud of me, to see that “normal” is unique to the individual and how we must learn to embrace that uniqueness, for that is our gift.

How would you like people to engage with your work?

I want people to engage with the curiosity, imagination, and openness needed to experience a new and unique perspective of the world in which we live.

Spread the word! Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

I design for a living, so my art has always been a hobby, used as a coping mechanism, a way to confront lived experiences — a way to heal. And if creating art can help one heal as much as viewing art can, I have a responsibility as an artist I have yet to fulfill. Hence the reason for this publication (and many more to come).

So what’s next on the horizon? Honestly, I don’t know because I don’t know what I’m doing. What I do know is that I’m going to take my time so that I can enjoy the journey. I’m not one for social media, so for now, I’ll continue reaching out to publications to share my art and my story. Hopefully, someone out there will help point the way.

You can view more art on my website at BMJ.ART!

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Australian photographer Kate Ballis was a former media and entertainment lawyer who felt for photography. She defines herself as an aestheticist with a love for light, color, and the beauty of darkness and shadows.

Her work has an essential fine art, yet editorial and commercial component with a focus on landscapes.

Instead of wearing a suit for work, Kate now experiments with patterns and textures found within the natural world, one of her preferred subjects, to create images that appear ethereal.

“I’m constantly planning the next destination to photograph and finding ways to capture that place’s story in a way that feels as unexplored as the location itself.”, she states on her website’s bio.

INFRA-RED TECHNIQUE

Kate Ballis has toured with an infrared camera – a new digital Sony device she converted into a full-spectrum camera – and with the use of colored filters, Ballis will produce images which show the chosen subject in purple, pink and red tones. The result is a set of surreal images that recreate a completely different palette to standard expectations.

It took her few days to reach the aesthetic she was looking for, days in which she experimented and played with filters and different techniques. She finally proudly ended up saying: “The colors I settled for the series allowed me to question reality and create ambiguity in everyday scenes.”

INFRAREALISM SERIES

Kate got to create the Infra Realism series while photographing Palm Spring’s Mars-like deserts, Mid-century houses, and luxury vintage cars. Soon though, she felt this was a general vision and decided to switch to a unique angle. “I sought to ree-enchant the city and its surrounding landscapes through some other medium, extending the edge of the visible spectrum exponentially (…)”.

Though, Kate went further, converting the ordinary palette related to palm Spring into an unexpected, the unusual purplish.

“What makes the INFRA REALISM series unique to me is how many ways there are of looking at it. To some, the palette is representative of 1980s Americana – of pink Barbie dolls driving blue Mustangs, MTV, Miami’s neon signs. As a child of the era, I certainly can’t escape my penchant for these hyper-realistic worlds that I looked at with awe in my youth in far-off Australia. And then there’s something spiritual about the work, too, in that it makes the unseen visible. I am interested in energy and how it can make us feel, affect our mood, and through this mode of photography, I can help make that more visible. That, to me, is the most exciting combination of science and magic.”

Go here to view more of Ballis’s works.

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Alessandra Testa was born in Milan in 1980. Her’s an interesting creative story, as Alessandra doesn’t define herself as an artist (yet). Although, as she told us during a very spontaneous phone interview, she feels, since she was a little girl, the urge to explore how to fill her spare time with artistic hobbies, such as dance or theatre. Despite this, her interests grew towards a different career, so she became a criminal defense lawyer. The years passed by, while Alessandra had to focus quite exclusively on her challenging job. But one day, as she was walking next to her office, an art gallery caught her attention. It was a photography gallery exhibiting digitally manipulated images made of juxtaposed layers. At first glance, she only felt attracted to those colorful artworks, but as soon as she discovered their high cost, she started nurturing the idea of doing some by herself. But again, her demanding job took most of her time for her to fulfill this aim.

ABOUT ALESSANDRA TESTA’S CREATIVE PATH

It all re began on a sleepless night while she was in Miami for a holiday. Alessandra was suffering from jetlag and couldn’t sleep, so she grabbed her phone and started playing around with some images she took those days of the American city. The more she was doing so, the more she discovered new tricks and tools to develop the resulting creative ideas she has been thinking of so far. The timing was the right one, as Alessandra was shortly launching her new law firm and was looking for original art to hang on the wall of her brand new office. Motivated by her first creative attempts, she kept layering photographs, and this is how she created her first work Miami.

When she got back to Italy, despite being reimmersed in her lawyer-look, she was now convinced in keeping her creative hobby alive. As for today, Alessandra created several artworks with a recognized style of vivid digital manipulation of her photographs.

During our conversation, we asked what pushed her to do so, and she straightly explained how she aims at creating collages of her memories to remind her of all the joyful things that took place in her life. Also, the objective of decorating her home with personal, joyful artwork is what kept her in doing so. The reason why she never thought of taking a step further in her art is probably this one: to keep it as a diary to herself. Today she has to withdraw this thought as she agreed about being part of a creative collective such as st-Art.

When motivated by founder and curator Carlo Tozzi to deepen her artistic skills, she came to Amsterdam for few days to know more about it and, together with the st-Art team, to examine in-depth her portfolio of works. Alessandra could then begin considering her passionate hobby as more structured and is today very capable of taking her art seriously. Alessandra indeed well explains as her artistic process is as an urge to depict her fears and emotions. She dreads the concept of emptiness, both figurative and emotional, and this is what pushes her to create collages of works filled with personal feelings and memories. She also wishes to arise in the viewer to search for its own thrill, as she suggests to dig all the juxtaposed layers and details to discover eventually some emotional connection.

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French photographer Thibault Brunet (b.1982) plays with the codified genres in photography to deepen the relationship between our reality and the entire social digitalized environment we currently live in.

He graduated at the Ecole supérieure des Beaux Arts in Nîmes and is recognized since 2008 by his outstanding series of images focusing on video games.

THIBAULT’S ACHIEVEMENTS

His work drew the attention of several institutions and competition juries, and in 2012 was selected for the Photo Month in Paris, Berlin and Vienna and was amongst the finalist of the Aperture Foundation Prize in New York, and in the Foam Talent prize in 2013 in Amsterdam.

In 2014 he took part to a collective project, France(s) Territoires Liquides.

He presented «Typologie du virtuel», a project in which he selected in Google Earth buildings that were co-produced by anonymous individuals, hence shedding a light on the desire to leave a trace in the digital world. Thibault Brunet collects fragments of this virtual world – shopping centers, public social housing, and seats of large commercial firms – that belong to a global architectural typology, unrelated to the territory itself. By adding a drop shadow defined with the date and time of its creation, the artist anchors these fragments to a specific moment and location. He re-contextualizes the image by connecting it to its creator’s action, and thus it becomes a new link in a collective creative chain. With the title of his series, a cataloging principle devoid of personal expression, and a composition dictated by a fixed procedure, Thibault Brunet refers to « anonymous sculptures » or the « typology of industrial buildings » made by the photographers Bernt and Illa Becher.

The images were exhibited at the Tri Postal museum in June 2015 and the Biennale de Lyon in September 2015.

Thibault started a new approach for the PMU Carte Blanche 2014 at the BAL and worked on the digitalization of the real world using a 3D scan. Since then, this project is ongoing with the technological partnership of Leica for the series « Territoires circonscrits » and has been exhibited for the first time in November 2015 at the Binôme Gallery.

PRESENT AND FUTURE

In the recent years, he has been working on the publication of two photography books: Typologie du virtuel was released in October 2016 (ed. La Pionnière) and Inexplorations was released in 2017.

He is currently being represented by the Binôme Gallery in Paris and the Heinzer-Reszler in Lausanne.

Check more about his work here.

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