Curated by Averil Curci “Transformation |Liberation” is part of Wembley Park’s free outdoor art trail Figures of Change, celebrating the first day of Spring and the importance of nature which launched on International Women’s Day 8th March 2022.
The public art trail features a variety of colour-soaked artworks on an exciting array of urban canvases, from large scale murals, light installations and high impact digital artworks created by female artists.
Likewise, Averil Curci’s sub exhibition Transformation I Liberation features an all-female cast of 10 international photographers whose inspiration for the show is the beauty and sustenance of the natural world and the renewal of spring.
“This Spring, my aim was to uplift and inspire people visiting the Wembley Park Art Trail with a strong and enticing selection of photographs by female artists. We have all witnessed the impact and importance of Nature to support and nurture us through these difficult times. I curated these images to rejoice and celebrate this connection and the creativity it can express.
“As we emerge from a period that has tried and tested us, we witness what we have become after this journey. With creativity and perseverance our spirits rise and together we face a new time. We have learnt with renewed clarity the importance of our connection to Mother Earth: she grounds us, teaching us about adaptation and resilience.” – Averil Curci, Curator
The female photographers for Transformation I Liberation have all taken their inspiration from the natural world. Their unique visual language made up of flora and fauna, express our deep connection to nature and celebrate its transformational beauty.
Over the last two years in particular most of us have found solace, nurture, support and resilience in the natural world, and now as we are emerging from it, we are looking to nature to find hope, renewal and creative freedom going forward.
The tenderness of our relationship with the outdoors is revealed with evocative sculptural portraits that symbolise an exuberance and strength of spirit. Inventive hybrid floral sculptures and delicately formed assemblages made from plastics are just some of the ways in which the artists are pushing boundaries in their quest to capture the natural world’s beauty. wembleypark.com/art
Thirza Schaap graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 1995. Since then, she has been working as a photographer and is now exploring new art forms through her Plastic Ocean Project. She has been living and working both in Amsterdam and Cape Town, South Africa since 2013.
Plastic Ocean combines sculpture with photography to examine our changing relationship with plastics and its increasing and overwhelming presence of it in our lives.
The images confront the viewer with a paradox – offering both minimal and aesthetically pleasing compositions which, on closer inspection, simultaneously instill a sense of ecological grief. Plastic Ocean questions consumption, idolatry and what it is we value in our lives today. The effect is a quirky, playful and pop art paradox.
At first glance, the debris do not repel us, rather their delicate aesthetic belie the ugliness of the plastic pollution on our beaches.
Plastic Ocean provides a kind of Vanitas for the 21st century. Traditional icons of mortality, ephemerality and wealth have been traded for bottles, baskets and bowls – single-use items which are used and discarded, now only existing as empty vessels of destruction.
Born in Norway, Karina Twiss, a photographer and director, grew up close to nature. This inspired her early passion for photography. The former first assistant to Sølve Sundsbø for 4 years, she uses her strong technical skills to create expressive settings that illuminate modern-day beauty.
Her work showcases a playful and spontaneous portrayal of subjects. Karina’s passion for travel sees her dividing her time between London and Paris. She is continuously working on personal projects at home and abroad which have been featured in Dazed Beauty and Vogue amongst others.
Collaborations include, Cacharel, Dior, Chanel, Net a Porter, Cartier, Space NK, Wella, Westfield, The Body Shop, Refinery29, Ashish, Simply Be, Warehouse, Dazed and Confused, Wonderland, Vogue, Elle, Allure, Porter, Harpers Bazaar, The fashionable lampoon, Hunger, Glamour and Madame Figaro France.
Stephanie Rausser is an advertising and editorial photographer who loves photographing kids, especially her daughter Kiki. Stephanie sees the world for all its beauty and humour and loves making it a little more fun, pretty and inviting. She lives in Northern California.
Jennifer Latour
Jennifer Latour is a self-taught artist from Quebec who moved to the UK in 2003 to work in special effects makeup. In 2006 she started her photographic practice – inspired by her love of cinema, sculpture and creating all manner of characters, her passion has culminated in the creation of Bound Species. Each piece is its own creature, a beautiful delicate Frankenstein of sorts. This ongoing series started in her apartment during the first lockdown in 2020 when she finally had the time to focus on her own artistic practise – sourcing all her flowers and fruits locally. Using her skills as a special effects makeup artist she set to work constructing these incredibly delicate ‘new species’ of plant. The artist now lives and resides in Vancouver.
Henriette Sabroe Ebbesen
Henriette Sabroe Ebbesen is interested in the intersection between painting and photography, working with reflections and collage to create deliberately surreal effects in her photographs. Her aim is to engage and surprise the viewer by getting them to question what is real and what isn’t.
“The photograph is a medium that is regularly used to portray reality. When seeing a photograph, we oftentimes presume it to be trustworthy and real. In my works I aim to play with this sense of reality…by distorting the objects and space within the picture frame.”
Conceptually her photographs often deal with identity and the subconscious and how it is affected and changed by its relationship with the surrounding world.
Christelle Boulé is a Canadian Swiss artist and photographer whose practice focuses on experimental photography. She is fascinated by editorial and printing processes that can help her to create a visual representation of the intangible – particularly the sense of smell – and expressing it in photographic form. Inspired by material testing and observations of how to capture the invisible – scents, sounds, emotions, time, ideas, concepts – Christelle likes to find ways to interpret and reveal what we cannot see.
Boule graduated with a Master of Art Direction (photography) from the prestigious art school ECAL/University of Art and Design in Lausanne (Switzerland). She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design from University of Quebec in Montreal (Canada) and has been working in the field since 2010. She lives and works between Paris and Lausanne where she is dividing her practice between commissioned work and personal projects.
Esperanza Moya Born in Jaén, Esperanza is based between Alicante and Barcelona. She first studied journalism and then moved on to photography. Her aesthetic fuses warm tones with natural settings, where her passion for cinema comes through with her love of storytelling. The Museum of Design in Barcelona currently has 11 of her photographs in its permanent collection.
Maria Luneva
Maria Luneva is a Russian artist based in Moscow. She studied industrial and car design but her photographic practice began during lockdown. Her mesmerising and surreal images use nature, performance, self-portraiture and makeup in a wildly original combination. Through her work, she hopes we will learn to look at nature with fresh eyes, retaining that sense of childlike wonder we somehow lost along the way.
Wami Aluko
Wami Aluko is a Nigerian conceptual photographer, creative director, and creative producer, who is fascinated with exploring the human condition both visually and in the written form. By integrating elements of fantasy and surrealism, her work aims to expand the ways in which people and seemingly mundane experiences and objects are perceived. Since starting her creative journey in 2016, Wami has gone on to take part in exhibitions in Edinburgh, London, and Lagos, and has had her work featured publications such as BBC, Vogue Italia, Galdem, Sukeban Magazine, Konbini, Punch Newspaper, and more.
Liz Von Hoene
Liz Von Hoene is an award-winning fashion photographer and director known for her immaculate concept driven images that strike a perfect balance between sophistication and whimsy. Whether she’s shooting for brands like Dove, Diet Pepsi, Credit Suisse, L’Oreal, Tampax and Ligne Roset, or diverse collaborative partners like Badgley Mischka, DSW, Kate Spade, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus and Target, Liz gives even the most familiar, everyday scene a fantastical twist. She transports us from the realm of the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Starting with a no-nonsense approach, she lets the magic happen in front of the lens as simply as possible to keep the unexpected as human as possible. Liz’s personality is evident in her work as a photographer and director – a sense of playfulness and polish is carefully scaffolded with calculated vision. She meticulously compiles inspirations and influences, ranging from the everyday to the magnificent, making each image more inventive than the last.
To learn more about this visit https://wembleypark.com/wembley-park-art-trail/transformation-liberation-by-averil-curci/
