Artrepreneur x FAIRE Finalist & Honourable Mentions
Open Call Submission Contest
“In the candlelit words of the great Pina Bausch: “dance, dance, otherwise, we are lost”. ”
Our winning open call submissions for Issues 2 & 3 of FAIRE.
Photography left-right: Melissa Haupt, Abigail La Branche
FAIRE is absolutely thrilled to have such a formidable partner in Artrepreneur, an online platform for artists, designers, collectors, and anyone who has a love for art and design.
We recently launched an ‘Open Call Contest’ to select a work of art to accompany Faire’s column “Stories of Salt and Starlight”, written by Ruth Steadman for our Issue 5 which will be published early April 2022.
We were overwhelmed by the incredible response and relished discovering so many wonderful creatives. We are thrilled to announce our finalist and our honourable mentions as selected with the help and guidance of our partners Artrepreneur, our panel of industry creatives and writer Ruth Steadman.
Our Finalist
Isolde Lehrmann
Our panel of creative industry leaders chose this incredible photograph from artist Isolde Lehrmann who submitted her work titled, ‘The Two of Me’.
We are honoured to publish Isolde’s photograph opposite storyteller Ruth Steadman’s column, ‘Stories of Salt & Starlight’ inside issue 5.
Isolde Lehrmann was born in Freising, Bavaria. She is a professional violinist and has been a member of the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra since 2001.
In 2016 Isolde spontaneously bought a camera in Napoli, Italy on her travels. In the years since she has honed her craft under the tutelage of photographers such as Zaira Zarotti and Signe Bay. Isolde specialises in still life compositions and portraiture and her true passion is scenic photography.
Discover more of Isolde Lehrmann’s work on @ysoldina
Every issue of FAIRE features Northern Irish storyteller Ruth Steadman’s column, 'Stories of Salt & Starlight’. Her column explores the power of working with our own stories to craft and transform our setbacks and trauma into something that regenerates and restores.
Find out more about Ruth Steadman and her writing @byruthsteadman
Our Honourable Mentions
“During a visit to the MOMA in New York I had the privilege to see Matisse's 'La Danse' for the first time. I remember the feelings of joy, freedom, and togetherness that this painting had presented in me. It was a powerful moment.
Years later, I made this photograph of children playing in a water fountain. I haven't touched or seen the negative until a few years after in 2020 during the height of the pandemic….Children playing gleefully together, without a worry in the world. It is a reminder that we all need a little dance, even during these messy and disconcerting times.” David Zheng
The Danse by David Zheng
David Zheng (b. 1985) is a photographer based in New York City, NY. His photography is an observation of the relationship between the cityscape and those who inhabit it. Born and raised in the Lower East Side of New York City, he was constantly stimulated by the diversity and ambiance of New York, which shaped his curiosity. Being largely self-taught and with no former experience, David furthered his education by attending the International Center of Photography in New York to train under a darkroom master printer. He also became an assistant to photographer Renato D’Agostin.
Best known for his black and white analogue work and photo books, he has published three artist books. Recently, his work has developed to include philanthropy work. Most notably in his project Where Did All the Flowers Go?, in which he focused his attention towards New York’s Chinatown to provide free portraiture to the senior community.
Zheng works out of his studio and darkroom in Brooklyn, NY.
Michelle Alena Magnoli
“Capturing one true, pure emotion is what really inspires me. Each photography series I begin begins with a specific feeling I wish to convey. In this world, there is so much miscommunication, and I aim to create images that are straightforward and unabashed in filtering what someone is feeling.
When I’m not taking photographs, I’m likely exploring the coast, googling the next far-off place to visit, or making costumes for fine art shoots. I have an unhealthy obsession with matcha green tea lattes but hey, they say it’s healthier than coffee!
My photography journey began with a black and white film course in 2009 and I have been taking photographs ever since. It happened organically; once I picked up the camera, that was it! I knew I found my calling.
I take a laid back approach to photography because I believe that sessions shouldn’t hold so much pressure. It’s as simple as this: I want to press the pause button on life and show people how beautiful they are.”
DOMUS GAUDENS by Vaida Rasciute & Kristina Kairiene
Domus Gaudens is a passionate collaboration by creative director Vaida Rasciute and photographer Kristina Kairiene. They left behind their home country of Lithuania for Ireland a decade ago and formed their creative collaboration, Domus Gaudens in 2015. Their work has been featured in numerous magazines, including Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.
Vaida and Kristina work together to create live installations which they then capture as a visual story. Very often they use daily life elements, landscape, natural resources and movement to create painting-like fine art photographs.
Bushra Gill
“Constellations have guided humans since the beginning of time, and yet, I wonder about how those seemingly unchanging shapes only appear that way because of our perspective from Earth. If we could see our solar system from another galaxy, or even another planet, wouldn’t those pinpoints of light form different patterns? Each of us views reality from our own individual point of view, which makes each reality different. What I see as red or describe as beautiful might be a different hue or elicit the opposite reaction for someone else. This body of work is about confronting the vastness of the world and sharing my view with the audience. Figures are seen from the back or moving through spaces at a distance, letting the observer in on their view. Star charts remind me of the seemingly random patterns that might form different shapes if looked at from another angle. Islamic geometric patterns may be a way to order the world.”
I tessellate images from everyday life using Islamic geometric patterns. Utilizing the structure imposed by the pattern, personal and narrative images hide in plain view without being the sole focus. The shapes in the patterns are a point of origin for plays on colour and spatial structure while creating order to help me understand the natural world. Exploring the idea of privacy, images are present but hidden or veiled, like my hair which I cover with a scarf in public.”
Akira Satake
“For me, the act of creation is a collaboration between myself, the clay and the fire. Collaboration means finding what the clay wants to be and bringing out its beauty in the way that the beauty of our surroundings is created through natural forces. Undulations in sand that have been moved by the wind, rock formations caused by landslides, the crackle and patina in the wall of an old house; all these owe their special beauty to the random hand of Nature. The fire is the ultimate random part of the collaborative equation. I hope the fire will be my ally, but I know it will always transform the clay in ways I cannot anticipate.”
Alexandra Sandbäck
Formless is a series of monotypes consisting of almost absurd bodyscapes, with patterns suggesting outer space within the inner space. The series is working towards a greater understanding of one’s body image, even body dysmorphia, and the constant movement of the body, no matter disability or diagnosis. The figures resemble almost floating rocks or islands, revolving softly around themselves.
When it comes to documenting prints and the playful approach of my printmaking, I don’t want to just scan the pieces flat. Instead, I use photography to add space around the piece and to show the paperness, the body, of my prints. Unfortunately, this was not allowed here, and maybe you do prefer flat prints. But I am open to presenting them in different ways.
I am an artist working widely within the art field, with among other things painting, photography, sculpture, installation and writing. With openness and serious playfulness, I tackle themes often relating to the body such as body image, discrimination and chronic illness.
I've worked professionally as an artist and author for over a decade, with a Bachelor's degree in media culture from UAS Novia, Finland. I've released four books and have had several exhibitions, both solo and group. I am currently studying in a Bachelor programme for Fine Arts, alongside working professionally.
Michelle Grant
“These two images are from a series called Nightlights, taken as long exposures in the summers of 2015 and 2016 when I lived in a very rural part of Italy. Fireflies, starlight and moonlight are performers in a temporal dance within the liminal zone where stories and magic meet our contemporary experience, and these images of the paths woven by tiny winking fireflies are a perfect example of that.
I am a photography-based visual artist, and I create works using a variety of processes, from cyanotypes and anthotypes to platinum/palladium and photo-lithography. I work with objects/plates, film and digital and combinations of these. I'm interested in the intersection of art and science and how the magic of that cross-pollination can impact upon our experience of the world.”
Nanci Milton
“In my work, I look for the unfound, the uncertain, the discarded, the unconsidered. I enjoy tempting the processes of photography and accepting, even inviting the accidents and the unknown.
I explore myth and memory; metaphor and symbolism in the artefacts of nature, the objects we live and surround ourselves with, and the intersection of the two. My formal theatre, modern dance, and literary training heavily influence my work with aspects of staging, cinema, poetry and memoir.
I will use any method that suits; film and digital photography and processes outside the camera, including flatbed scans of arrangements of various elements; found items, items with personal relevance or of unknown origin; natural elements are taken out of context; "still lives" "caught" in the scanner's flash of light brought back to life in a moment of light, for a moment. Then they are taken on a sequence of changes and alterations involving layered simple filters sometimes as many as 9 or 10, and markings or text or a building up of all of these. I will also use any material that suits the piece, tea, cement, masking tape, staples.
The pieces are open narratives; stories within stories. My process is many stages of the process. Each image has many stops along the way. It can take many periods of work to resolve an image to completion. In reality, I don't consider an image ever "complete". The next iteration is always still ahead. Therefore. I often work in series or sets, and the chronology becomes as important as the initial capture.
My images are open and I invite the viewer to participate in finishing the story.”
Barbara O’Donovan
“I create dark moody botanically inspired designs for wallpapers and linens -my images reflect a life lived enthralled by nature and the beautifully melancholy images of religious icons. I often combine the two using very little light to entice the viewer to look deeper, to wait for the beauty to reveal itself”
Andreia Cismasiu
“My work celebrates women. The beauty, sadness, happiness, craziness, mystery, magic, all the feelings and moods of a woman. The woman in my works is me, but I am also inspired by all the other women in the world.”
I combine photography with painting. It's a technique I developed in 2009. The photographs in my paintings are personal images that I reinterpret, in my own way.”
The first of a series of digital images created in sequence (GESTURE-AS-SIGN); using paint and water on glass.
Lucinda Boermans
“I am an interdisciplinary artist and motion design teacher originating from Scotland. My practice explores object-based inquiry, video, sound, and photography to consider Ecologies of Movement after Guattari’s notion of ecosophy that challenges us to re-think the philosophical basis of our pedagogical relationship with Nature. I understand ecological relations via existential mutations, the utopic, and the power of storytelling in response to my primary social concern: the effect of digital media upon the human condition. Driven by a fascination of movement, explored within four-fold coordinates: within a relational space, within open dialogue, within the physical dialogue and within a space of ludic exploration, I look to the value of language beyond the visible to consider interpersonal relations on multiple levels (in time, space and in-person with others).
The Artrepreneur Story
The Artrepreneur team believes that artists can achieve success when armed with the right resources. We know because we are artists too.
Artrepreneur was formed to empower visual artists to better manage their creative life and careers. It is our commitment to support our members throughout their creative evolution by providing opportunities and resources to help them learn and grow.
As a public benefit corporation, we are committed to balancing profit and purpose so that we can not only help artists and designers be more successful artrepreneurs but also foster an inclusive, sustainable community of creative talent from across the globe.
By joining Artrepreneur, you are connecting with the most diverse community of artists and art lovers of the world who champion thoughtful curiosity, profound courage, and deference to culture. The genius behind Artrepreneur comes from the artists, designers and art lovers who make up our community. Let’s live life artfully together
Some of the artists currently on Artrepreneur
‘Paragon’ by Primary Hughes. @primaryhughes
Parking Garage Gate, Chinatown, New York City by Barton Lewis. @urbanseen
Tuscany Landscape by Donald H Green.
@dhg.studio
Hidden by Hannah Munroe, @hbmunroe