EDITORS NOTE I’d like to warmly welcome all of you to Issue Four of Élémentaire Zine. Air is the final stop on our voyage through the elements, a journey that has filled us with nothing but excitement and inspiration. Therefore, it’s important to me to thank all of the artists that have contributed to Élémentaire thus far, as well as the viewers for taking the time to read and hopefully appreciate the collections of work we have gathered. I hope you continue to stay tuned as we take on new themes and topics in the coming months. Now, back to Air. This issue is brimming with beautiful artwork sourced from around the globe, created from a whole range of mediums. You’ll find interviews with the multi-talented; Brooklyn based Benjamin Løzninger & Aerial Photography guru, Jakob Wagner, alongside iconic imagery from the likes of Berndnaut Smilde. To all of our Air issue contributors, thankyou. We hope you enjoy Issue 04! Regards, Mark Kiszely ‘All copyright remains with the artist, unless discussed prior to publication’
ART DIRECTOR Theodora Pangos www.behance.net/pangos
EDITOR Mark Kiszely www.facebook.com/markkiszelyphotography
CONTRIBUTING WRITER Andrew Skinner thisistheraccoon.com/author/andrewjskinner
CONTRIBUTING WRITER Matthew Dunne-Miles mdunnemiles.contently.com
COVER ARTWORK Laurence Jephcote www.facebook.com/venusflytrapdesignlj EMAIL elementaire@live.com LINKS www.facebook.com/elementairezine twitter.com/ElementaireZine behance.net/elementaire
04 MAY XIONG/ 08 LAURA ROSSI/ 10 JAKUB POLOMSKI/ 14 JESSE TREECE/ 16 ALEX HOVEY/ 18 BEVIN RICHARDSON/ 20 JACOB PRYOR/ 22 BENJAMIN LOZNINGER/ 26 BERNDNAUT SMILDE/ 30 FLORIAN MULLER/ 34 JAKOB WAGNER/ 40 ANDRE ERMOLAEV/ 44 BERNHARD LANG/ 48 CORNELIA KONRADS/ 54 VIMARK/ 56 ARAYO/ 60 CARINE WALLAUER/ 64 JEEN NA/ 68 DENITSA TOSHIROVA
MAY XIONG
May Xiong is a twenty three year old photographer based in Fresno, California. Her work focuses on the combination of portraiture and conceptualism. By utilising both forms of visuals, she captures the essence of moments that are raw, rare and tell a story. Heavily inspired by attention to details, light, music scores, and other photographers such as Gregory Crewdson, Alex Stoddard and Annie Leibovitz, she creates photographs that encapsulate unusual beauty; bringing forth her subjects delicately and intimately with the surrounding environment that sometimes may seem heavy or harsh. It is the subtle expression of emotion that creates an atmosphere within her photographs that make her work stand different in the world of fine art portraiture. This short series ‘All Around Us’ is based on the idea that everything in nature is a part of who we are within our little bubble of existence, that we are the bits and pieces of the gases around us. Links: mxphotography.4ormat.com www.behance.net/mx_photography
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Laura Rossi is a self-taught photographer and graphic designer from Italy. She specialises in posters, editorial design, illustration, corporate image, photography & art direction. She studied Visual Communication and has a degree in Cultural Heritage. Laura says she’s constantly looking for inspiration and some years ago she found her love for art, though has always been passionate for everything visual and arty, from photography to illustration. Her work has been featured in several books, magazines, blogs and design portals such as Artlab, Vogue, StyleCult, Square, TrueMetal, Zooppa, Behance and many more. In the past few years she has worked with Illycaffè S.p.A, BIC, and Franklin Elman. Links: 500px.com/LauraRossi www.flickr.com/photos/53199126@N06/
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Polomski was born in 1985 in Poland & started his adventure with photography when he turned 20 years old. Inspired by photos he saw in an issue of National Geographic, he borrowed a DSLR from a friend and then it began... He learnt how to catch light & hone his skills by uploading photos onto photography platforms and getting critique from more experienced photographers. Since 2007, Polomski has been awarded with several prizes and commendations in various photography contests. By far the most important achievement in his eyes was to receive a National Geographic Poland statuette for first place in the category “Polish Landscape” in 2010. His main aim in photography is to visit and “catch” as many places as he is able to. Links: www.jakubpolomski.com www.facebook.com/Polomski.Photographer
JAKUB
POLO
OMSKI
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JAKUB POLOMSKI
Jesse Treece is a collage artist who currently lives in Seattle. He says he likes “to play with shifting perspectives, scale and colour schemes in his collage work, often trying to get the most out of a minimal amount of images.” Jesse is in his element when sat down with a stack of magazines with no clear idea of where he’s going to end up, instead simply trusting his hands to guide him. Links: collageartbyjesse.tumblr.com collageartbyjesse@yahoo.com
JESSE TREECE
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Alex is half Welsh, half illustrator and is currently based in London. He has aspirations of becoming a dinosaur (preferably a Velociraptor, so that he can open doors). He has a real flair for ink and print, drawing inspiration from patterns found in the natural world and licking toads. His idols range from Darwin to Dame Edna. Links: cargocollective.com/alexihovey
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Currently studying Illustration at Plymouth University, Bevin likes to explore philosophical and social themes in his work which he tries to combine and infuse with a sense of poetry in his imagery. Practically, he likes to create patterns and decorative work and also enjoys experimenting with interesting new mediums to create unique ways of creating his art. Links: www.behance.net/richardson www.flickr.com/photos/bevin_richardson
BEVIN
RICHARDSON 18
JACOB PRYOR
Jacob Pryor, from Grand Rapids Michigan, started to work in digital art at the age of 16. During his high school years he taught himself how to use Photoshop by using online tutorials. Jacob proudly exclaims that those self-taught years were made worthwhile when he was accepted into Kendall College of Art and Design where he studies Digital Media. Links: http://be.net/Jacpryor
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We speak to French art director Benjamin Løzninger about his endless list of projects, how a musical upbringing has shaped his character and his fascination with the sky. Hello Benjamin, please introduce yourself. I’m a French art director, graphic designer, photographer, musician, video editor, sound engineer, illustrator, and multi-media artist. I was trained at France's prestigious École des Arts Décoratifs where I wanted to become a film director. A few years later, as an artist and graphist, I helped launch Paris’ famous musical odyssey agency, Super! who produces the Pitchfork Paris festival. I am also an active touring musician and I use my world tours to experiment with photographic diary projects. In 2011 I directed Elektrisk Gønner's “Uknowwhatiwant” music video that generated over one million views online and was featured on Syfy's Lost Girl series. I recently co-founded FrenchBK, a creative collective focused on innovations in the ever-blurring lines between the culture of digital storytelling and experimental brand experiences.
The { c/loud } project is based on digital photos I took of clouds in various places. At some point it became some kind of obsession: finding the best post to have the perfect photo of a blue sky full of dreamy clouds. I collected a tonne of photos and I have loads more to cover the grey walls of the world. I like the contrast between the apparent simplicity of a sky and the reaction it provokes because it’s placed in an unexpected place. I like the joy and the smiles on faces. It could be a picture of a commercial, but no it’s a sky. It’s the same medium, it’s printed paper pasted on a wall but the reaction is totally different.
Would you describe the project as being street art? It is street art. Though I don’t care about labels. Street-art, photography, painting, digital… I just want to explore the interactions between art and people, and the street is a wonderful open-air gallery for that. And if it can make people feel better for a few seconds just outside of their door, it’s even better.
Who and what has influenced your career so far?
What did you look for when choosing the areas for your Cloud Project?
I never felt influenced by something specific but my father was a painter and I guess I grew up in an arty, fertile nest without really noticing it. I spent the first 20 years of my life drawing everyday, for hours, whilst listening to music and my family was more than okay with it. My mother was a classical musician and my father was listening a lot to The Beatles since I was born. And I still praise them for that.
The biggest scales were chosen with partners that allowed me to paste them. It was close to a school, or in a sad grey street… Otherwise for the smaller scales, I take photos of spots that would be interesting when I’m walking the streets. I can walk for hours trying to lose myself in cities. I then sketch on the photos where and how I could paste some clouds, get some photos printed to the right scale and, with the help of friends, go on a wheat-pasting night hunt.
Is Cloud Project digital or print based? If digital, would you ever consider bringing your vision to reality?
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What about the sky do you find so inspirational? I don’t think anything human can not be inspired by the sky. Whenever I look at the sky I see the beauty and the unknown, the past and the future, the light and the darkness. Sky is both the limit and the beginning of the infinite. Do you feel as though your work belongs to the surrealism genre? Or is it simply genre-less? I like the concepts of surrealism and that it involves a certain philosophy on life. Also it’s not linked to a specific medium. Though we’re living in different times, things move faster.
The Internet spreads images without words or slogans. But there’s no longer place for long concepts and in a way I like it. The work has to talk by itself. Anyway I’m still dazzled when someone around me is asking: “So what is it for?” Like things shouldn’t be made without commercial purposes these days. I just want to answer this question with: “Well look and you tell me”. Have you considered going even larger scale than you have already in this current series? Yes of course! I want the sky to invade the grey streets and make the people dream. Actually I’m looking for a whole city or neighbourhood to cover with clouds. So if
Have you got any new projects coming up? With the FrenchBK team in Brooklyn, we are working on a huge multimedia project that would mix photo, video, architecture, web and street art. It’s a long, hard and fascinating process and we can't wait to share it with the world. I’ve also gone back to hand drawing and painting. I’ve been fascinated by crows and their symbolism for years now and I always wanted to make something happen with it.
I had this installation project for a US prison that was unfortunately aborted but I decided to carry on to create a large murder of crows to paste in the streets. It should happen pretty soon.
http://www.frenchbk http://www.stasolab.com My new album will be released pretty soon too now, and it includes a limited postcards edition of a previous photo work, you can check it out/order it here : http://mini50records.bandcamp.com/album/ a-new-start
C/LOUD PROJECT
you have a city and are interested, just contact me!
BERNDNAUT
SMILDE
Dutch artist, Berndnaut Smilde produces striking images of ‘real’ clouds suspended within empty rooms. Using a fog machine, he carefully adjusts the temperature & humidity to produce clouds just long enough to be photographed. There is a unique ephemeral aspect to the work where the photograph captures a very brief moment before the cloud dissipates and disappears again, as mysteriously as it was formed. His choice of lighting and viewing aspect enables him to create a representation of the clouds physicality. In a separate new series of work, Smilde has started working with a material called ‘Aerogel’, also known as frozen smoke. Aerogel consists of 99.8% air and is the lightest solid material on earth. In these works, Aerogel hovers like an eerie translucent smoke over scaled down models of buildings.
Berndnaut Smilde currently lives and works in Amsterdam. He has exhibited across The Netherlands & also in Toronto, Taipei, Istanbul, Dublin, Paris, London and San Francisco. Smilde’s work resides in both the Saatchi and the Smithsonian collections, amongst others. Alongside this, Smilde has been written about extensively in art publications, with his ‘Nimbus’ series being recognized by TIME Magazine as one of the “Top Ten Inventions of 2012”. Smilde is represented by Ronchini Gallery in London who will host a solo exhibition of his works in April 2014. Links: www.ronchinigallery.com www.berndnaut.nl
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BERNDNAUT SMILDE
FLORIAN MÜLLER
As a fine art photographer Florian’s main subjects are abstract, landscape and urban photography. He combines digital and analogue techniques like Polaroid pictures. The combination of visual perception and communication is one of his incitements in finding new motives and conceptions for photographs. He states: “A picture has to tell a story or has to build a story in the beholder’s mind.” In a world he describes as being “powered by faster, higher, further”, he sees a progress in pausing. He aims to create pictures and visual spaces that invite the observer to dwell, to linger and to contemplate. Links: white-bunny.com www.behance.net/white_bunny
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FLORIAN MÜLLER
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JAKOB
WAGNER
What first sparked your interest in photography? My interest in creative expression started early. At 12 I started to draw and a year later I discovered graffiti, I started with nightly, illegal lettering in urban areas and improved my graffiti skills to large scale commissions. I bought a camera to be documented as a graffiti artist. I quickly realized what great potential the photography had and I started to use it as an independent artistic medium. At what point did you realise that this was moving from a hobby into a professional pursuit?
period of experimenting I found that with long exposure at night, things you can not see with the naked eye could be visualized. That fascinated me and I started my "Nightscapes" series. Many of your landscapes have a dark and stormy quality, do you prefer capturing heavier, brooding imagery compared to brightly lit scenes? I was fascinating by "bad" weather ever since I can remember, especially by thunderstorms and lightning. So yes I absolutely prefer bad and gloomy weather to take photographs of landscapes or cityscapes. A bright and sunny summer day is uninspiring for me.
At 16 I was then beginning to realize that I wanted to be a photographer. During a long
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You seem to be well travelled in search of your pictures, is there a location that has a particular emotional attachment for you? I had the fortune to work as assistant for a few renowned photographers while they were working all around the globe. Foreign cultures and faraway countries have always excited me and traveling provides me with a lot of inspiration. One of my favorite places is Cape Town, because of his many various and beautiful landscapes in the same area. The view from the Table Mountain was really emotional and fascinating for me, no other place in the world impressed me that sustainable. Quito in Ecuador was also really interesting, but I'm sure there are so many other places in the world with fantastic landscapes. I really would love to travel to Iceland or Australia some day...
Are you very selective about taking a shot? Or do you give yourself the freedom to be loose with your shutter finger when at a location, and then follow a strict editing process after? Thats depending of the scenery, if I take aerial photos, I take many more shots than I need for my series and afterwards I follow a strict editing process to select my favourites. If I take night shots I work more selective, because of the very long exposure times (sometimes longer than 30 minutes). For someone who works heavily with landscapes, are the elements a key factor in your work? Yes, absolutely. Some places I have visited more than ten times, to get the scenery in perfect conditions of weather and light. I think the most important thing is to be at the right spot at the right time!
How do you go about getting these fantastic aerial shots and what does a bird’s eye view tell you about that location? When working as a photo assistant across the globe, I spent a lot of time in airplanes which I could not have afforded otherwise. The contemplation of a place from the air gives you an unparalleled overview and some times a understanding of the great whole thing. Where are you hoping to go in the future with your photography work? I try to maintain a right balance between commission work for various clients and personal work that I want to publish in exhibitions, galleries and books.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learnt which helps you as a photographer? For me it was very important to establish some years working as an photo assistant for professional photographers, because I have learned a lot about how the business is run and what skills you’ll need beyond photography. In addition, always try doing your own thing and not be heavily influenced by others while working on your personal projects. The great thing about being a photographer is the chance to turn your hobby into a career. However, this also means that you’ll don't hardly have any free time. As a photographer at the beginning of your career you have to do it all by yourself. This includes accounting, customer acquisition, web presence and self-promotion. Being a photographer is a true full-time job that never really allows you to rest.
Links: www.jakobwagner.eu
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JAKOB WAGNER
Most of these pictures were taken during several flights on a small plane during the summers of 2010-2013. Andre made shots simply from the open window from the height of about 50-150 meters. The main areas of flights were along coastal and highland regions. Andre says: “The image is not so contrasting and bright but there are some pictures that look like practically as we see them. It all depends on external lighting, I suppose that all of the photos are close to what I have seen with my own eyes.� Links: andre.ru 500px.com/andreabe
ANDRE ERMOLAEV
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BERNHARD LANG Bernhard Lang, a talented German photographer with a versatile career to his name, is obsessed with finding this ideal distance, the perfect point where nature and humans could seem to be living together in a perfect match. His aerial views, almost unreal in their calculated formalism, amaze with the new perspective they cast on this eternal battle, both aesthetic and existential, between the natural environment and the human presence. Links: www.bernhardlang.de bernhardlang.blogspot.com
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BERNHARD LANG
Cornelia Konrads, born in Wuppertal, Germany, studied Philosophy and has worked as a freelance artist since 1998. Her interest is primarily focused on site-specific installations – indoors and outdoors, temporary and permanent. As a passionate traveller, she has realised concepts through her various experiences of expositions, residencies and commissions in Europe, Asia, Australia and America. Her starting point is always a reflection of a space and it’s particularities – a close dialogue with the architecture, topography, vegetation and history of the surrounding area. Cornelia creates states of irritating ambivalence by adding an element to the scenery, which refuses to fit into the expected order, showing up and merged into its site.
It is not sure, if this element was always there; if it will stay, change or disappear in the next second. The situation often suggests an ongoing movement or unstoppable process. It can be seen like a film still, pointing backwards and forwards, containing past as well as the future and the whole of the film in its core. Something doesn’t behave as it should – within the twinkling of an eye the inner monologue gets interrupted. This rupture bears a certain chance: to challenge what is supposed to be ‘reliable’ about what we know: the laws of gravity, the solidity of walls or the ground under our feet. Cornelia’s works are produced contrary to the logic of ‘what the case is’ – but always with a small sardonic smile. Links: www.cokonrads.de
CORNELIA
KONRA
f
ADS
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CORNELIA KONRADS
VIMARK Max Mitenkov, aka Vimark, is a digital artist from Belarus who mainly manipulates photos. His favoured areas include surrealism, conceptualism, landscape and dreamscape. Max claims a great goal of his is to have his work showcased in an exhibition. Links: vimark.deviantart.com www.behance.net/vimark
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ARAYO
Yo Choowa, aka arayo, currently resides in Bangkok, Thailand and became interested in photography about five years ago. Fine art is her favourite style though it can change, whether it be minimalistic or surrealistic, depending on her mood.
She usually takes landscape and waterscape scenarios and manipulates them after shooting, trying to insert her feelings and emotions into her work. Links: arayo.deviantart.com www.facebook.com/pages/arayo/121633731246594
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ARAYO
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CARINE WALLAUER Carine Wallauer is a young dreamer photographer from Brazil. Her work is an ongoing project that portrays her relationship with the people and places she loves. She believes that through photography you can reshape reality while mixing old dreams with fragments of memory. In her production she uses only analogue cameras and experiments with different shapes, materials and techniques. Links: carinewallauer.com behance.net/carinewallauer
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CARINE WALLAUER
JEEN NA Jeen Na is an 18-year-old photographer looking for a way to express how he feels through his art. He started photography about five years ago when he bought his first point-and-shoot Sony Cybershot, which he called Aaron. Over time, he became intrigued, then obsessed, with portrait photography. Jeen claims he doesn’t know why he’s so drawn to portraiture; it’s just something about the human face and body that is so interesting and beautiful to him.
his Flickr. He’d just returned from a month-long vacation to London and Paris and his mind was still geared to city-life. However, after returning to his quiet hometown, he realised just how much living in the city had affected him. He was a little anxious, needed answers fast, and felt uncomfortable just sitting around. So he made this photo to express how city life can take over our minds and sometimes really give us headaches.
Many things inspire Jeen, including daily life and small habits that people have as well as the big picture and the strong emotions people feel when they're happy and sad.
Jeen admits that the second photo doesn't have much meaning behind it. He was mostly just experimenting on Photoshop and noticed that the two photos would work well together in an overlay. So he went ahead and made it. The third photo was originally a sketch that he’d drawn in his sketchbook out of boredom but then decided to turn it into a photograph.
Other inspirations for Jeen are light and shadows, but he claims that his biggest inspiration of all is that “there's always a way to make a photo better.” The first photo was an idea that Jeen had been messing around with about a month before he actually uploaded that photo to
Links: www.flickr.com/photos/simplycasual
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DENITSA TOSHIROVA Denitsa Toshirova is a Bulgarian-born artist currently based in Edinburgh. Her portfolio covers a wide range of different aspects of photography but her recent work is focused on alternative fine art black and white photography. Her passion and interest in it was triggered by a recent family tragedy. Denitsa says she focused her work on double exposure in order to represent two worlds– our world, the world of the living, the physical world, world of flesh and desire; and the other world, the world of the unknown, the spiritual world, this better place we all dream of and hope one day we’ll see the ones we’ve lost there. She claims that events like this “really make you value the world around you, but you always end up with this emptiness you fill out with unanswerable questions,” and asks: “Is there an afterlife? What happens with the human soul? Is there a human soul? 21 grams. Is this how much a life weighs on a scale?” Links: www.behance.net/toshirova
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