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Win a Solo Exhibition in August! Juror Ann Jastrab, Executive Director, Center for Photographic Art
Wenxin Zhang
Wenxin Zhang
Wenxin Zhang

Wenxin Zhang

Country: China
Birth: 1989

Wenxin Zhang lives and works in San Francisco. She received her MFA at California College of the Arts.

Zhang creates non-linear photographic novels. In her writings and photography, she describes her experiences of growing up in China, her current life in San Francisco, and her personal relationships.

Zhang's work has exhibited widely in United States and China. Zhang was selected as a finalist in 2014 Three Shadows Photography Award, Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award, and Photographic Museum of Humanity New Generation Award. Also, Zhang was selected as an artist in residence by Rayko Photo Center and The Center for Photography at Woodstock. Zhang's first monograph will be published in early 2015 by Jiazazhi Press.

Statement:
"Five Nights, Aquarium is a non-linear narration weaved by photographs and five short written works.

I try to reconstruct my inner journey from trips I’ve made between my home country China and San Francisco during these two years in a truthful way, but the overloaded feelings of estrangement and desolation created by the journey have transformed my memories into illusions of confinement. Due to this confinement, my journey story became a space-time, which resembles an aquarium. In this aquarium, cityscapes are fish tank decorations, people are fish, and writings are tank labels.

I chose five nights in the whole reconstructed journey story, using five semi-fictional short stories as clue, to portray the imaginary aquarium. The stories are cold yet intimate, sensual yet intangible. The narration of journey moves from real to imagined spaces, exploring the boundaries between autobiography and fiction."
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Vytenis Jankūnas
United States
1961
Vytenis Jankūnas is a Lithuanian-American artist who in his latest work uses mostly photography as a medium for his artistic projects, which include books, photo and video installations. He has shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally. Recent exhibits include one-man shows at Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius (Lithuania) (his second solo show in CAC Vilnius), Tallinn Art Hall Gallery, (Estonia), Undercurrent Gallery, New York City (USA) and Prospekto Gallery, Vilnius (Lithuania). He won the 1st place in Self Published Books category of the IPA - int'l photography awards, has been a recipient of the Fellowship award from the New York Foundation for the Arts, New York City (USA) and was awarded a residency at Nordic Arts Centre (HIAP), Helsinki (Finland). Vytenis Jankūnas lives and works in New York City, USA. Urban Portraits - NYC Edition My latest photography project is called ''Urban Portraits - NYC Edition.'' I have lived in New York City for over 25 years and always been asking myself: what keeps me here for so long? Is it cultural richness, or the career opportunities this city can offer, or maybe the ability to experience most of what the world can offer without leaving the city? I guess everything at once, but one thing became certain to me: I fell in love with the people, the way they look, the way they dress, the way they talk. It is hard to find another city in the world with such, or similar diversity within its population. This is what my project is about, just walking the streets and capturing people with my camera religiously. The result is something in between street photography and portraits of people in the vulnerable state of everyday life. It is still an ongoing project
Iness Rychlik
Iness Rychlik is a Polish-born photographer and filmmaker with a particular interest in historical drama. Despite her severe myopia, she has been dedicated to visual storytelling for over a decade. Iness graduated with First Class Honours in Film from Screen Academy Scotland. Set in Victorian London, her final-year film ‘The Dark Box' follows an unhappily married woman, who pursues photography to escape from her oppressive relationship. ‘The Dark Box' premiered at Camerimage, where Iness received a Golden Tadpole nomination for her cinematography. Rychlik is recognised for her dark feminine erotica. She is fascinated by the idea of conveying sexuality and cruelty in a subtle evocative way. Her conceptual self-portraits aim to provoke the viewer's imagination, rather than satisfy it. ARTIST STATEMENT Although greatly influenced by historical drama, my work is deeply personal and symbolic in nature. I suffer from a hyper-sensitive skin condition. As a teenager, I would often attempt to cover it up; I resented being asked if I had accidentally burnt myself. Throughout the years, I have learnt to see my skin as a canvas of expression, rather than an ugly inconvenience that should be kept hidden. I use my very own body to explore the themes of solitude and objectification, often employing antique garments or props to depict the parallels between my experiences and the inferior female position in Victorian Britain. I honour the concept of transforming hidden pain into art – exposed, disturbing and beautiful.
Nhien Hong Do
Vietnam
1962
I got into street photography as a passion after long days of work. I started exploring it in 2016, and I’ve found that street photography allows me to tell daily stories through images, capturing people with my vision and emotions. It’s about seeing each character through my lens and presenting them in a carefully chosen frame. I don’t focus too much on the technical side of my Fujifilm camera; instead, I focus intensely on discovering something unique or even unsettling in each person’s character to convey a story. Street photography brings me joy by letting me capture fleeting moments that reveal something about the people in my images. Over time, I’ve learned a lot by studying photo books and award-winning photography. I take time to appreciate each photo from other photographers, often wondering, "How did they capture this? What made them choose this specific moment?" Through this reflection, I realized that every photographer has their own way of seeing and capturing street life, and I respect their individual approaches. I’ve adopted bits of their skills into my work, but instead of copying, I’ve built my own unique style. In the end, my goal is to create street life photography that brings what I see to your soul. My talent in street photography has been recognized and featured in several publications and exhibitions. My work captures the essence of urban life and has found its place in notable books and projects dedicated to the art of street photography. In 2023, my photography was included in Urban Unveils the City and Its Secrets – Volume 08, a project by the Urban Photo Awards in Italy, which highlights the hidden sides of urban landscapes. In 2017, I was featured in Soul of Street – Volume 12, published by Photography & Philosophy Magazine in Germany, showcasing street photography that resonates with human stories and philosophical insights. That same year, my work was included in Street Photography in the World – Volume 1, a collection from Italy celebrating street photography from across the globe. Back in 2016, I contributed to Street Photography from Around the Globe in collaboration with the We Street collective, a project dedicated to street photographers worldwide. Additionally, in 2016, I had the opportunity to exhibit my work in Bucharest, Romania, where my photographs were displayed as part of a curated exhibition. Awarded Photographer of the Week - Week 46
Elaine Mayes
United States
1936
Elaine Mayes has been an active visual artist since 1960. A main focus and emphasis for her work has been investigations of ‘seeing’ and documentary forms in photography. This interest led to a number of projects and seeking out various close at hand situations in the world as subject material for her photographs. Elaine majored in painting and art history at Stanford University and then studied at the San Francisco Art Institute with John Collier, Jr. Paul Hassel, Minor White, Nathan Oliviera and Richard Diebenkorn. Between 1961 and 1968 she was an independent photojournalist working in San Francisco for magazines and graphic designers. During 1967 and 1968 she was a rock and roll photographer and photographed the ‘Summer of Love’ and scene in the Haight Ashbury District of San Francisco. One of her assignments was to photograph the Monterey Pop Festival. This work was published in her book called, It Happened In Monterey. Elaine taught photography for thirty-five years, beginning at the University of Minnesota in 1968. Then she taught at Hampshire College from 1971 to 1981, at Bard College during 1982 and 1983, and at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts from 1983 until 2001. Elaine was Chair of the Tisch Photography Department from 1997 until her retirement from teaching. Currently, she is Professor Emeritus and is living in the Catskill Mountains of New York actively continuing her work. Elaine’s photography has been exhibited extensively, with recent exhibitions connected with The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Summer of Love and The Monterey Pop Festival and includes the de Young Museum, The California Historical Society, The SFO Museums United Airlines Terminal, The Monterey Art Museum, The Grammy Musuem, Spazio Gerra - Comune di Reggio Emilia, Italy and the Joseph Bellows Gallery in La Jolla. Elaine has received a number of awards including three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She also was awarded funding from The Atherton Foundation for her Hawaiian images and book production for a limited edition handmade book called, Ki i ‘no Hawai’i. Her newest publication is, Recently, Daylight Press, 2013. Elaine is affiliated with Getty Images, Joseph Bellows Gallery, Morrison Hotel Galleries, and Liberal Arts Roxbury.Source: www.elainemayesphoto.com
Pieter Henket
The Netherland
1979
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Josef Koudelka
Czech Republic
1938
Josef Koudelka was born in 1938 in Boskovice, Moravia. He began photographing his family and the surroundings with a 6 x 6 Bakelite camera. He studied at the Czech Technical University in Prague (CVUT) between 1956 and 1961, receiving a Degree in Engineering in 1961. He staged his first photographic exhibition the same year. Later he worked as an aeronautical engineer in Prague and Bratislava. He began taking commissions from theatre magazines, and regularly photographed stage productions at Prague's Theatre Behind the Gate on a Rolleiflex camera. In 1967, Koudelka decided to give up his career in engineering for full-time work as a photographer. He had returned from a project photographing gypsies in Romania just two days before the Soviet invasion, in August 1968. He witnessed and recorded the military forces of the Warsaw Pact as they invaded Prague and crushed the Czech reforms. Koudelka's negatives were smuggled out of Prague into the hands of the Magnum agency, and published anonymously in The Sunday Times Magazine under the initials P. P. (Prague Photographer) for fear of reprisal to him and his family. His pictures of the events became dramatic international symbols. In 1969 the "anonymous Czech photographer" was awarded the Overseas Press Club's Robert Capa Gold Medal for photographs requiring exceptional courage. With Magnum to recommend him to the British authorities, Koudelka applied for a three-month working visa and fled to England in 1970, where he applied for political asylum and stayed for more than a decade. In 1971 he joined Magnum Photos. A nomad at heart, he continued to wander around Europe with his camera and little else. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Koudelka sustained his work through numerous grants and awards, and continued to exhibit and publish major projects like Gypsies (1975) and Exiles (1988). Since 1986, he has worked with a panoramic camera and issued a compilation of these photographs in his book Chaos in 1999. Koudelka has had more than a dozen books of his work published, including most recently in 2006 the retrospective volume Koudelka. Koudelka has won awards such as the Prix Nadar (1978), a Grand Prix National de la Photographie (1989), a Grand Prix Cartier-Bresson (1991), and the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (1992). Significant exhibitions of his work have been held at the Museum of Modern Art and the International Center of Photography, New York; the Hayward Gallery, London; the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam; and the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. He and his work received support and acknowledgment from his friend the French photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson. He was also supported by the Czech art historian Anna Farova. In 1987 Koudelka became a French citizen, and was able to return to Czechoslovakia for the first time in 1991. He then produced Black Triangle, documenting his country's wasted landscape. Koudelka resides in France and Prague and is continuing his work documenting the European landscape. He has two daughters and a son. Source: Wikipedia
Fan Ho
China
1931 | † 2016
Fan Ho’s (born in Shanghai in 1931) photographic career started at the early age of 14 when given his first Kodak Brownie from his father. Within the first year he won his first award in 1949 in Shanghai. At the age of 18, he acquired his twin lens Rolleiflex with which he captured all his famous work after he moved to Hong Kong with his parents and continued to purse his love for photography. Dubbed the “Cartier-Bresson of the East”, Fan Ho patiently waited for ‘the decisive moment’; very often a collision of the unexpected, framed against a very clever composed background of geometrical construction, patterns and texture. He often created drama and atmosphere with backlit effects or through the combination of smoke and light. His favorite locations were the streets, alleys and markets around dusk or life on the sea. What made his work so intensely human is his love for the common Hong Kong people: Coolies, vendors, hawkers selling fruits and vegetables, kids playing in the street or doing their homework, people crossing the street… He never intended to create a historic record of the city’s buildings and monuments; rather he aimed to capture the soul of Hong Kong, the hardship and resilience of its citizens. Fan Ho was most prolific in his teens and 20s and created his biggest body of work before he reached the tender age of 28. His work did not go by unnoticed at his time. He won close to 300 local and international awards and titles in his day through competing in the salons. His talent was also spotted by the film industry where he started out as an actor before moving to film directing until retiring at 65. Fan Ho is a Fellow of the Photographic Society and the Royal Society of Arts in England, and an Honorary Member of the Photographic societies of Singapore, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, France, Italy and Belgium. He most recently won a "Life-time Achievement Award, the 2nd Global Chinese International Photography Award, China, 2015" by the Chinese Photographic Society (Guangzhou). During his long career he has taught photography and film making at a dozen universities worldwide. His work is in many private and public collection of which most notable are: M+ Museum, Hong Kong, Heritage Museum, Hong Kong, Bibliothèque National de France, Paris, France, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, USA and many more. Source: fanho-forgetmenot.com
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