║ Ville Lenkkeri ║

© Ville Lenkkeri, The Collected Works of Lenin, from the series The Place of No Roads

© Ville Lenkkeri, Dead Domestic Plants II, from the series The Place of No Roads

“Two Russian communities on Spitsbergen have had their times of bloom. Now one of them is a ghost town and also the other one is running out reasons and will to exist. In this series these towns are studied subjec-tively as cases of risen and fallen utopias. Photographed on Spitsbergen 2003-. Work in progress.”
Ville Lenkkeri

To see more of Ville’s work click here

║ Maarit Hohteri ║

© Maarit Hohteri, Roosa and Jussi in the kitchen, Helsinki 1999

© Maarit Hohteri, Mikko, sleep markings, 2001

“I document moments in my life by photographing people who are close to me. By means of photography, I seek to store my own and my friends’ feelings and observations about life and about being a human being. As I look at the pictures, I remember the changing flats, relationships, feelings of insecurity and my own fickle moods. Photography is also an attempt to arrange a seemingly random life into a whole; a story with a past, present and future.”
Maarit Hohteri

More of her work can be seen here.

║ Susanna Majuri ║

© Susanna Majuri, Birthday, 2007

© Susanna Majuri, The Plant, 2004

I suggest: we can be multiple. Touch your enviroment and it will show itself as fantastic. People are unpredictable. They are male and female at the same time. Eyes whisper sparks.
The water is the most remarkable. It carries bodies. Water is colour. The shimmer and the deep green. My challenge is to see the reality in a non-traditional light. When I am shooting
pictures, I have a premonition that something strange is about to happen.
I follow the logic of colours, when I combine places, people and objects. To me the most important quality of photography is it´s capability to convey emotions.
I suggest: imagine the details a bit further. Who is drawing trees in to the pond. When you touch the surface of the house it turns out to be your companion.
Susanna Majuri

To see more of her work click here and here

║ Jari Silomäki ║

© Jari Silomäki, from the Series My Unopened Letters

© Jari Silomäki, from the Series My Unopened Letters

“In “My Unopened Letters”, Silomäki creates a kind of fictive reality: the tales of a fictive self and network concerning the self’s relationships with other people in the past, present and future. Over the years, he has received letters from different people, which he has left unopened. The letters thus contain countless attempts to contact him, messages from those who wrote them and conceptions of relations between the self of the narrative and the writers. They have all remained clouded in secrecy. The unopened letters are arranged in piles on shelves according to their senders, forming a balanced installation of chromatic beauty, which Silomäki has photographed and printed in large format. This installation is the core of the series. The other small groups of works belonging to the series consist of images depicting situations in the relationships between the writers of the letters and self of the story. They are complemented with text panels commenting on the situations in the images. Jari Silomäki plays with the concepts of document and fiction and their mutual relationship, and the characters of his tales deal with problems and emotions that are true and characteristic of man. In terms of colour, the works are linked through green: the images employ different tones of green lending a kind of distanced, cinematic mood to them.

(from the Anhava Gallery)

To see more of Jari’s work click here.

║ Martine Fougeron ║

© Martine Fougeron, Tête-à-Tête III, c.2007

© Martine Fougeron, Tête-à-Tête IV, c.2007

“This work explores adolescence as a subliminal state, between childhood and adulthood, and between the feminine and the masculine. The portraits, naturally staged, explore the intrinsic interior quest of the adolescent’s journey. I noticed that most photographers portray adolescents as outsiders with a despairing outlook on their world and the world around them. This was not the perception I had of my sons’ lives. I was fascinated by the inquisitive energy, the intense inner quests, the fabulous dreams and ideals, which they exulted. I thought that a calmer, more introspective view of the adolescents’ world could have a fresher resonance, not steeped in sensationalism but in heightened intimacy. My creative process foresees scenes I want to capture. I smell and touch a scene long before I capture it photographically. I have lovingly observed the habits, customs and unique expressions of my two sons and their close friends. My house is a haven for them all.”
Martine Fougeron

To read the full interview click here,
To see more of Martine’s work click here.

║ Michael Schnabel ║

© Michael Schnabel, Elephants/Rinoceri, Stuttgart, 2000

© Michael Schnabel, Monkeys, Stuttgart and Hannover, 2000

“German photographer Michael Schnabel’s large-format images of zoo interiors in Germany and Switzerland resonate with a minimalist beauty, which oddly emphasizes their mid-century modernist architecture.[...]
Like Elephants/Rhinoceri, Stuttgart, some of the spaces Schnabel photographed resemble indoor spas rather than cages. Some even have elements that suggest a posh lifestyle, such as an ornately tiled floor or wood slatted ceiling. In other pictures, even the metal bars form appealing, grid-like patterns.[...]
For one thing, there’s an overwhelming feeling of empty space, leading one to notice the conspicuous absence of the animals that are supposed to be living there. There are traces indicative of their presence–food troughs, bales of hay, wading pools, simulated habitats with logs and foliage. The photographs’ titles don’t give away what types of animals inhabit these spaces; one can only guess. Schnabel photographed in the early daylight hours when they were asleep. The stillness is soothing but unnatural, so you begin to wonder what it would be like to live there.”

Anne Martens

║ Jyrki Parantainen ║

© Jyrki Parantainen, 57 Optional Spots to Crack the Bone, 2004

© Jyrki Parantainen, Alphabet of Possibilities, 2004

“Serie “Dreams and Disappointments” explores man´s physical and psychological vulnerability. Representations of the human body are marked, at their perceived points of vulnerability, by push-pins and attached strings. The strings, pulled tight to a point outside the frame of the image, allude to the presence of an unknown, dominant force.
Events in the images are describing individual´s relation to himself and other people. There are social situations that use to be repeating in human life: the field of understanding or missunderstanding between male and female or the confusion of a child on the front of expectations.
In cinematical set ups they are usually represented in the moment when they are facing their history, future, dreams and their fears.
In spite of the tragical tones of the serie the meaning of it is anyhow strongly to questionize this unsure, random and sometimes even threatening quality of our everyday life. As an opposite, with soft irony, colours, details and visual richness the collection points to the warm and optimistic atmosphere. After all, the meaning of these works is to lead audience to the comforting experience that there is anyhow always a chance to the happy end.”
Jyrki Parantainen

To view more of Jyrik’s work click here.

║ David Hillard ║

© David Hillard, The Looker, 2005

© David Hillard, Kiss, 1994

“For years I have been actively documenting my life and the lives of those around me, recording events and attempting to create order in a sometimes chaotic world. While my photographs focus on the personal, the familiar and the simply ordinary, the work strikes a balance between autobiography and fiction. Within the photographs physical distance is often manipulated to represent emotional distance. The casual glances people share can take on a deeper significance, and what initially appears subjective and intimate is quite often a commentary on the larger contours of life.
For me, the construction of panoramic photographs, comprised of various single images, acts as a visual language. Focal planes shift, panel by panel. This sequencing of photographs and shifting of focal planes allows me the luxury of guiding the viewer across the photograph, directing their eye; an effect which could not be achieved through a single image.
I continually aspire to represent the spaces we inhabit, relationships we create, and the objects with which we surround ourselves. I hope the messages the photographs deliver speak to the personal as well as the universal experience. I find the enduring power and the sheer ability of a photograph to express a thought, a moment, or an idea, to be the most powerful expression of myself, both as an artist, and as an individual.”
David Hillard

To view more of David’s work click here.

║ Mark Hooper ║

© Mark Hooper, Untitled, from Lewis & Clark -Quantifying Nature, 2005

© Mark Hooper, Untitled, from Lewis & Clark -Quantifying Nature, 2005

To view more about Mark’s work click here