Photographer #087: Jane Burton

Jane Burton, 1966, is an Australian photographer. She has been in various exhibitions (group and solo) and her work is held in numerous private and public collections. Her photographs are dark, mysterious and often poetic. She often combines images of landscapes together with portraits. The following images come from the series Velvet Portrait Suite, Ivy and Wormwood.

Website: www.janeburton.com.au

Photographer #086: Phillip Toledano

Phillip Toledano, Great-Britain, 1968, lives and works in New York. In 2010 he released his third book Days with my Father. It is an intimate view into the life of Toledano's father who had lost his short-term memory. In his series A New Kind of Beauty Phillip has taken portraits of people that have enhanced their physical appearance by undergoing surgical operations. Phillip put his subjects in real costumes in his series Hope & Fear, playing with internal desires and paranoia that are adrift in contemporary American society. The following images come from the three projects described above.

Website: www.mrtoledano.com

Photographer #085: Julia Fullerton-Batten

Julia Fullerton-Batten, Germany / UK, 1970, has worked for several years on a single project. It is a project on teenage girls that consists of three parts. The first is Teenage Stories, where the girls are placed in settings where they dwarf their surroundings. The second is School Play, where Julia compares Asian and Caucasian schoolgirls. The third is In Between, where the girls are floating in their surroundings. Read the biography on her website to find out what her thoughts behind this project are. The following images come from the three parts of her project.

Website: www.juliafullerton-batten.com

Photographer #080: Kimiko Yoshida

Kimiko Yoshida, Japan, 1963, has build an impressive body of work that consists of self-portraits. The oppression she felt in her homeland made her leave Japan. About her work and Japan she says the following: "Since I fled my homeland to escape the mortifying servitude and humiliating fate of Japanese women, I amplified, through my art, a feminist stance of protest against contemporary cliches of seduction, against voluntary servitude of women, against "identity" defined by appurtenances and "communities", against the stereotypes of "gender" and the determinism of heredity."
The following images come from the series Paintings Self-Portraits 2010, Blown Glass Symbols 2009 and Self-Portraits 2006-2009.

Website: www.kimiko.fr

Photographer #079: Polixeni Papapetrou

Polixeni Papapetrou, Australia, 1960, used to make images that dealt with identity and contemporary culture, but now takes photographs that concentrate on the themes of childhood and childhood memories. She often uses her own children, Olympia and Solomon, in her photographs. In her latest series Between Worlds, she made images of children with masks. Even though it seems the photographs are merely humouristic, there is a serious underlying theme. The following images come from Between Worlds, Haunted Country and Dreamchild.

Website: www.polixenipapapetrou.net

Photographer #078: Wang Qingsong

Wang Qingsong, China, 1966, makes large, staged images that are printed in enormous sizes. His photograph China Mansion stretches to the length of 12 meters. Qingsong is sometimes described as the 'enfant terrible of Chinese art photography'. He often uses themes as China's consumer culture and materialism. He has described his work as "kitschy, but powerful ... contradictory, but critical." Apart from photography he also works with video. The following images are Safe Milk, Dormitory, China Mansion and Follow Me.

Website: www.wangqingsong.com

Photographer #076: Reiner Riedler

Reiner Riedler, Austria, 1968, is a photographer who has published various books. In 2009 his book Fake Holidays came out, bizarre photographs of fake places that give people a sence of adventure or a way to escape their daily life. In his most recent series Between the Lines, Reiner is trying to simulate scenes from novels he reads, thus giving his visual interpretation through staged photographs. Riedler has also travelled extensively, amongst which are many trips to Eastern Europe. Several images have been combined in his series On the way. The following images come from Fake Holidays, Between the Lines and On the way.

Website: www.photography.at

Photographer #074: Sabine Pigalle

Sabine Pigalle, France, 1963, first studied French literature before becoming a photo stylist. She has not studied photography but has worked several years for Helmut Newton. These steps in Pigalle's life seem to have been the foundations of the photography she makes today. In 1998 she decided to show her work to the public, this was the start of her photographic carreer. The following images come from the series Ecce Homo, Homo Phobiens and Black Light.

Website: www.sabinepigalle.com

Photographer #072: Vee Speers

Vee Speers, Australia, 1962, lives and works in Paris, France. Her most recent series is The Birthday Party, an imaginary birthday party where children dress up creating bizarre, twilight zone like images. Earlier her book Bordello was released. Photographs printed with a 19th century technique and inspired on the photography of the 1920's and 30's. The following images come from the series The Birthday Party, Bordello and Parisians.

Website: www.veespeers.com

Photographer #066: David Stewart

David Stewart, Great-Britain, 1958, is a photographer that uses a lot of humour in his photographs, this is also visible in the playfull design of his website. In 2009 his latest book Thrice Removed was published. It is a collection of images that work like an observation on relationships and life in general. On his website one can find the category Stuff. Various humorous images dealing with the darker side of life like suicide. The following photographs come from Thrice Removed, Stuff and Decisions.

Website: www.davidstewwwart.com

Photographer #064: Michal Chelbin

Photographer Michal Chelbin, Israel, 1974, just released her second monograph called The Black Eye. In 2008 she released the book Strangely Familiar, human stories somewhere between the odd and the ordinary. It is a series of portraits of often small-town performers, kids and dwarfs. The images are private moments in which Michal tries to address everyday questions of life. The following images are from Strangely Familiar.

The following images come from the series The Chapels.

Website: www.michalchelbin.com

Photographer #062: Alejandro Chaskielberg

Alejandro Chaskielberg, Argentina, 1977, started as a photojournalist. After completing his photographic studies he worked on various documentaries as a director for television. By using fictional scenarios and playing with sharpness he has developed his own style in photography. He searches for the limits of documentary photography and water is a recurring theme in his projects. The following photographs come from the projects The High Tide, Nocturama and Borders.

Website: www.chaskielberg.com

Photographer #060: Jeff Bark

Photographer Jeff Bark, USA, 1963, makes his images look like paintings. In his series Woodpecker he build a scene including a pond in his studio. The photographs a romantic scenes filled with symbolism. In his series Flesh Rainbow we see male and female nudes combined with still-lifes in bizarre positions with items covering their faces. Dark, sometimes comic and sometimes fetishistic. The following photographs come from the series Flesh Rainbow, Woodpecker and Abandon.

Website: www.jeffbark.com

Photographer #051: Shadi Ghadirian

Shadi Ghadirian, Iran, 1974, got international recognition with her series Qajar in 1998. Qajar are images of woman dressed in the 19th century Qajar-style. The pictures are also taken that way, but Shadi has added a few modern touches. She points out the difficulties of tradition and modernisation of the women in Iran today.

In the series Like EveryDay she depicts all the things women have to do on a daily basis. Making the appliances their face symbolises how women are looked upon.

Her latest work is White Squar, objects of war with a red ribbon, making it a gift. The objects are photographed completely isolated.

Website: www.shadighadirian.com

Photographer #046: Simon Strong

Simon Strong, 1974, is an Australian photographer. The time he works on a single image ranges from a few weeks to 9 months. Combining Eastern with Western influences in his photography, that often are about dreams and memories, make up the body of work from Strong. He likes to trigger our perception of the possible and defines his work as "photographic composite."

Website: www.simonstrong.com

Photographer #043: Jan von Holleben

When opening the website of German photographer Jan von Holleben, 1977, a sentence by someone greets you, one of them is: "What work I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn't have done it" by Mark Twain. This phrase symbolises the body of work by von Holleben. Throughout his photographs we see a joy of life, a personal approach and a fascination for the imagination. The following photographs come from the series Dreams of Flying, Snowbed and Cyborg Pets.

Website: www.janvonholleben.com

Photographer #040: Simen Johan

Simen Johan, Norway, 1973, makes photographs consisting of many layers of images. These photographs really impress once seen in real size because there are many things to be discovered in them. For instance, the fox in the image below is crying tears. All of the animals in the series Until the Kingdom comes show some kind of human behaviour.

The following photographs come from the series Evidence of things unseen, about the fascination of children for the unknown.

Website: www.simenjohan.com