artists
series (ii)
Anastasia Kolesnichenko
Driven by an insatiable curiosity about the transient nature of thoughts and emotions, Anastasia’s work is an exploration of escapism, a quest for balance and harmony amidst the chaos of existence. She believes that beauty resides in the overlooked, the ephemeral, and the everyday.
Through her photography, Anastasia captures fragments of life, distilling fleeting emotions into visual narratives. Anastasia’s sculptures are crafted from ordinary objects, fruits and flowers. This choice of material reflects her belief that art can be found in the most common places, awaiting discovery by those with an open eye and an open heart.
Anastasia's artworks have been featured in Sindroms Magazine, Fisheye magazine, Home living Korea, Les Echoes France and Elle Decoration US. She has also collaborated with commercial clients such as Zara Home, Dropbox, Anissa Kermiche and Aurora James.
Anna Bu Kuliewer
Anna, who defines herself as “Gerkainian”, was born in Ukraine and raised in Germany, and is known for her photo collages combining human figures and elements of nature. She is a mixed media artist living and working in London, UK.
Anna works in both analogue and digital collage, creating still and moving imagery. Driven by her curiosity about other realities, time and space, she likes to challenge the perception of identity and environment by transforming found imagery into a new, surreal context.
Anna’s library of cut-out paper pieces has now reached over 20,000 items and continues to grow only slightly faster than her plant collection.
Farheen Fatima
Farheen Fatima is a self-taught photographer and visual artist based in Chandigarh, India. Her work explores the themes of nostalgia and the complexities that govern human longing for tenderness. Through her lens, she meditates on these themes and finds her own voice.
Farheen is the recipient of The Toto Photography Award, 2022, and her work has been shortlisted for the Kuala Lumpur Photo Awards Portrait Prize, 2022. Her photographs have been exhibited in Spain, Malaysia, Germany, the United States, at the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE; and the 8th All India Women Artists’ Contemporary Art Exhibition, India. Her photo series, 'Meet Me In The Garden', was exhibited at the PHOTOINK booth, India Art Fair, 2023 in New Delhi.
Farheen's photographs have also been featured by Apple, Getty Images Reportage, and VSCO. Her work has been published in Better Photography India, Vogue India, Verve India, Grazia India, The Bengaluru Review, and Homegrown India. Additionally, she has co-authored a poetry book titled, 'Private Maps' published by Human/Kind Press in Wilmington, United States.
Kavi Pujara
Kavi Pujara is a self-taught photographer. He works as a film editor for the BBC alongside independently making personal, long-term documentary photo projects. His work has been included in the touring group exhibition Facing Britain: British Documentary Photography Since the 1960s.
In 2020, Pujara was the recipient of a Martin Parr Foundation photographic bursary. Two portraits from his project ‘This Golden Mile’ were selected for the National Portrait Gallery’s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize in 2022. Photographed over five years as Britain left the EU, ‘This Golden Mile’ documents the streets surrounding the famous one-mile stretch of Melton Road and Belgrave Road in Leicester. “I wanted to celebrate this multicultural community during these politically polarising times,” Kavi explains. “I hope to show our commonality and that communities like this are not an erosion of British values or its culture but a vital artery in our intertwined and tangled colonial histories.”
‘This Golden Mile’ became Kavi’s first solo show at the Martin Parr Foundation in 2022. A monograph of the same project was published by Setanta Books. More recently, Kavi was a finalist in the Aperture Portfolio Prize 2023.
Matt Russell
Working between New York and London, Matt Russell creates personal, evocative photographs born of a deeply felt emotional connection with his subjects, and a refined visual instinct that imbues his work with a classic, poetic elegance.
Matt's distinctive approach to lighting and composition is informed by his background in moving image and an enduring love of cinema. His creative practice is equally guided by individual instinct and a sense of collaborative exploration; although each photograph may spring from a personal artistic impulse, the discovery is made in engaging with his subject, be it a person, cuisine, or landscape, and in seeking to capture an image that speaks authentically and with immediacy.
Tine Poppe
Tine Poppe is an artist photographer living and working in Oslo, Norway. Her practice focuses on bringing attention to social, political, existential and environmental issues through art or documentary photography. In doing so, her work has been published and exhibited in prominent publications, photography magazines and exhibitions around world.
Tine’s works have been purchased by both governmental and corporate art collections in Norway and abroad. Her work has been internationally awarded by Sony World Photography Awards, IPA International Photography Awards, PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris, LensCulture Emerging Talents Awards, LensCulture Street Photography Awards and others. Her work is included in the book, ‘The Best of LensCulture Vol. 1 and Vol. 2’. Tine was recently awarded the prestigious Norwegian award, Fotografiprisen.
Xuebing Du
Xuebing is based in California, and born in China. Her artistic productions focus on diverse elements of the natural world: deserts, gardens, and most frequently, plants and flowers. She explores the beauty of nature by emphasizing texture, light, and colour. Her work has been published in Washington Post, The New York Times, 摄影世界 Photoworld Magazine, DOPE Magazine and Flora Photonica. She has exhibited In Bloom, Fotografiska, Stockholm, Sweden, Flora Imaginaria, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, SCOP Shanghai Centre of Photography, Shanghai, China, Darklight&Her, Group Exhibition, Amsterdam. Some of Xuebing's clients include Apple, Huawei, Brussels Royal Opera House, and Paris Opera.
series (i)
Nick Ballon is an internationally-renowned, award-winning documentary and portrait photographer whose work appears regularly in publications including the Sunday Times Magazine, The Guardian Magazine, the Financial Times, the New York Times, El Pais and Der Spiegel.
A journalistic sensibility is at the heart of Ballon’s photographic practice. He invests hours into research and development, studying and hunting for nuances and irreverent details that allow him to forge a new route into a particular subject. For the last decade, Nick’s personal work has focused exclusively on his Ango-Bolivian heritage, exploring socio-historical ideas of identity and place, with a particular focus on the concept of “foreignness” and belonging.
Recent work includes Ezekiel 36:36, an exploration of Bolivia’s national airline; the spectacle of open-air wrestling in Viva Las Luchadoras! and, most recently, The Bitter Sea, which examines Bolivia’s painful longing to reclaim the sea it lost to Chile in The War of the Pacific at the end of the 19th century.
Adapted from a text by Gem Fletcher
Solmaz Daryani is a self-taught Iranian documentary photographer based in Iran and the UK. Her work is particularly known for exploring the themes of climate security, climate change, human identity and environment. Through her work, she identifies locations, characters and scenes that enable her to investigate the diversity of lifestyles and the relationship between people and their environment.
Daryani’s photographic projects take place over extended periods of time. This enables her to tune into personal narratives, and to understand how time impacts the people, environment and life around her.
In 2015, she received the IdeasTap and Magnum Photos Grant while working on a long-term project entitled The Eyes of Earth – an investigation into the environmental and human impact of the drying of Lake Urmia in Iran. The project explores the connections between climate change, environment, water crisis/security, geography, and human identity in Iran and neighbouring countries.
Her work has been published in National Geography, Der Spiegel, Foreign Policy Magazine, Polka Magazine, L'OBS Magazine, Le Monde Magazine and other publications. She is a member of Women Photograph and Diversify Photo.
Elena Heatherwick is a London-based freelance photographer specialising in portrait and documentary photography. Her work is characterised by an acute understanding of light and shadow and a sharp eye for texture and meaningful detail. “Conversations are at the heart of how I approach photography,” Heatherwick explains. “After that, I rely a lot on what the light is doing that day ...”
Heatherwick’s award-winning work has featured in numerous magazines and newspapers including the New York Times and The Guardian. International assignments include projects for the United Nations and the International Rescue Committee. She recently travelled to Rwanda and Madagascar to document the lives of those affected by the lack of access to basic sanitation. “Each encounter is an opportunity to learn, to exchange ideas” says Heatherwick. “It’s a total privilege.”
Stephanie McLeod is a freelance photographer. She has recently relocated back to New Zealand after five years in London. After graduating with a BSc in Human Nutrition in 2010, Stephanie took a more creative path, turning her photography hobby into a career. Initially focussed on food, this quickly expanded into a wider range of still life photography. Her main inspiration will forever be food and our relationship with it.
Settling into life in a small town in New Zealand, Stephanie is currently inspired by the wider concept of moving ‘home’ into a relatively innocent and insular community, and the damp, hazy sunlight of the region. Stephanie often works alone, enjoying the calm quietness of composing a scene. This is translated into the images she makes. Her goal is always to create perfectly imperfect light, bringing soft textures and a natural quality to her work.
Ameena Rojee is a freelance photographer working with both digital and film photography. Rojee – who was born and grew up in south London – is half-Spanish, half-Mauritian and her mixed heritage informs her practice. Community and culture are the cornerstones of her work, which ranges from portraiture to documentary photography.
Rojee recently spent 47 days walking from the south of Spain to the north-western city of Santiago de Compostela, a route which forms part of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. Personal participation is key to her practice. “I enjoy telling stories about adventure, the outdoors and women in these spaces,” she explains. “I am motivated by a need to be more than an observer; to personally understand the topic I’m photographing or exploring.”
Her clients include the Telegraph Magazine, Endemol Shine Group, Jagermeister, Culture Trip, Noctis Magazine, Hill+Knowlton Strategies and more. Alongside her work as a photographer, Rojee writes a bi-weekly newsletter, Notes on Freelancing, and runs an online photography journal, Of the Land & Us, which explores our relationship with the natural world.
Yilin Shi is a recent graduate of the Royal College of Art and is now a freelance photographer based in Changzhou, China. Her practice focuses primarily on connections between individuals and their surroundings. A sensitive and detail-oriented photographer, Shi specialises in capturing specific moments in surreal atmospheres.
“Photography represents escapism from what can sometimes be a painful reality,” explains Shi. “Light has a strong and significant role in my photographs,” she continues. “It is a symbol of pure love for the world, and it demonstrates the healing power of photography.”
Shi’s work has been exhibited in London and in China and she has been published in London’s Source magazine and Foto Video in China.