photographic thursday :: diana daia

In.Circles / For Madmen Only.
"An obsessional quality, a muted colour palette and an engagement with themes such as mysticism and sexuality would be some of the words to describe Diana Daia’s work.  The overtones of modernist aesthetics, such as constructivism, dada or surrealism and the use of a new medium, such as digital photography may seem enough to set the stage for the practice of this subculturally informed artist.  But despite her purist, perceptibly autonomous images, functioning in the context of a trans national subculture, her work developed in the socio political context of post communism.  Romanian-born Diana Daia was well aware of the failure of the modernist project of communism and witnessed its unfolding effects in her home country."

photographic thursday :: maleonn ma

Enter Maleonn Ma

brassaï

Brassaï (1899-1984)
Among the numerous means of expression open to him, Brassaï chose photography as it allowed him to capture the atmosphere of the Parisian nights for which he became famous. Henry Miller called Brassaï a "living eye". Paris became a theatre set where the subject dominates the composition, in which he captured a dimension that lay between journalistic account and poetic vision. The graffiti engraved on the walls captured the attention of this photographer obsessed by the reality of man and matter. "The surrealism of my images was nothing more than reality rendered fantastic by the way I saw it".