PHOTOGRAPHY OF KRYSTINA STIMAKOVITS
Photography for me is about finding beauty beneath the dross and the banal in our everyday surroundings. It is about sharing my pleasure of seeing the world as it is and as I am able to perceive it.
Originally from Vienna (Austria) I moved to London in my early 20s and have lived here ever since. I took up photography as part of my Fine Art degree in the 90s and enjoyed all the different analog processes and techniques. My current digital practice is still in essence based on the dark-room skills I acquired then.
For the past 10 years, photography has been my main and intensive pre-occupation which includes the self-publications of several photobooks and regular participation in group exhibitions. Highlights have been an international competition in 2010 which won me a trip to China and a week long residency under the auspices of the City of Yangzhou and China Photo Press. Winning another international competition in 2015 resulted in two solo exhibitions in Budapest, Hungary. More recently I was offered an exhibition space and a 50 minutes presentation during the London Street Photography Festival in East London, I was also one of the judges for two of their international competitions.
What were you interested in when you were a child and how did that lead you down the path to where you are now?
I enjoyed drawing from an early age. Though more importantly, I think, is the fact that from the age of five I needed to be very observant so as to navigate the city streets of my neighbourhood, given that both my parents were working and school finished at midday. I also spent long periods in my father’s village where the family had a building materials business. It’s here that I developed my love for messy and dusty environments where all kinds of textures and traces of manual labour could be found.
Please tell us about the photographs featured.
The photo above was taken through the window of a telephone booth across one of the streets in my South London neighbourhood. I liked how the scratches on the glass refracted the scene and the somewhat ambiguous feeling this conjured up for me.
I often turn my lens at, or through glass, fences or plastic sheeting meshing together different layers and picture planes. Doing so achieves a complexity that to me reflects the nature of urban living itself. After all, these are scenes we all see from the corners of our eyes, however subliminally.
Apart from the kind of pieces featured here, are you currently working on anything else that you can talk about?
Whilst it is my normal practice to wander the streets without plan or purpose in the manner of a flaneur gathering up whatever solicits my attention, I am currently working on a project which relates to our need to transition away from our toxic love of plastics. “This Plastic Negative” series comprises a collection of digital negatives converted from images that feature plastic sheeting as it shrouds windows of stores also in transition, i.e. during refurbishment works.
What is one of the most challenging aspects of your work?
The main challenge after 10 years intensive practice is to avoid producing the same kind of images. When analysing my work, which I do regularly, especially when selecting works for an exhibition or a photobook, I do see that there are certain pre-occupations that I tend to navigate around and rarely stray from. At the stage I feel an acute need to venture outside my comfort zone and so I have enrolled myself on a course which is about the body and movement, neither of which I have ever tried to grapple with. I am curious and excited to see what may come of it
Are there any particular artists or photographers that have greatly influenced or inspired you in your life or work?
When it comes to visual culture I am like a sponge. So having soaked up a huge amount of paintings, sculpture, installations and photographs over my adult life, it would be an impossible long list of people who no doubt have left an indelible mark on my understanding of what a picture / work of art could be like. But maybe I can mention a few that I tend to return to again and again, for the simple pleasure of it, if not for the inspiration they provide: painters Cy Twombly and Tapies, sculptors Eva Hesse and Eduardo Chillida and photographers: Jungjin Lee and Harry Gruyaert.
Are prints available of your work, and if so where can they be viewed or purchased?
Most of my photographs from the past 5 years that are featured on my website and also on flickr (which I use as my visual diary) are for sale.
I can be contacted via my website www.stima-images.com or
flickr : https://www.flickr.com/photos/casualties/
Originally from Vienna (Austria) I moved to London in my early 20s and have lived here ever since. I took up photography as part of my Fine Art degree in the 90s and enjoyed all the different analog processes and techniques. My current digital practice is still in essence based on the dark-room skills I acquired then.
For the past 10 years, photography has been my main and intensive pre-occupation which includes the self-publications of several photobooks and regular participation in group exhibitions. Highlights have been an international competition in 2010 which won me a trip to China and a week long residency under the auspices of the City of Yangzhou and China Photo Press. Winning another international competition in 2015 resulted in two solo exhibitions in Budapest, Hungary. More recently I was offered an exhibition space and a 50 minutes presentation during the London Street Photography Festival in East London, I was also one of the judges for two of their international competitions.
What were you interested in when you were a child and how did that lead you down the path to where you are now?
I enjoyed drawing from an early age. Though more importantly, I think, is the fact that from the age of five I needed to be very observant so as to navigate the city streets of my neighbourhood, given that both my parents were working and school finished at midday. I also spent long periods in my father’s village where the family had a building materials business. It’s here that I developed my love for messy and dusty environments where all kinds of textures and traces of manual labour could be found.
Please tell us about the photographs featured.
The photo above was taken through the window of a telephone booth across one of the streets in my South London neighbourhood. I liked how the scratches on the glass refracted the scene and the somewhat ambiguous feeling this conjured up for me.
I often turn my lens at, or through glass, fences or plastic sheeting meshing together different layers and picture planes. Doing so achieves a complexity that to me reflects the nature of urban living itself. After all, these are scenes we all see from the corners of our eyes, however subliminally.
Apart from the kind of pieces featured here, are you currently working on anything else that you can talk about?
Whilst it is my normal practice to wander the streets without plan or purpose in the manner of a flaneur gathering up whatever solicits my attention, I am currently working on a project which relates to our need to transition away from our toxic love of plastics. “This Plastic Negative” series comprises a collection of digital negatives converted from images that feature plastic sheeting as it shrouds windows of stores also in transition, i.e. during refurbishment works.
What is one of the most challenging aspects of your work?
The main challenge after 10 years intensive practice is to avoid producing the same kind of images. When analysing my work, which I do regularly, especially when selecting works for an exhibition or a photobook, I do see that there are certain pre-occupations that I tend to navigate around and rarely stray from. At the stage I feel an acute need to venture outside my comfort zone and so I have enrolled myself on a course which is about the body and movement, neither of which I have ever tried to grapple with. I am curious and excited to see what may come of it
Are there any particular artists or photographers that have greatly influenced or inspired you in your life or work?
When it comes to visual culture I am like a sponge. So having soaked up a huge amount of paintings, sculpture, installations and photographs over my adult life, it would be an impossible long list of people who no doubt have left an indelible mark on my understanding of what a picture / work of art could be like. But maybe I can mention a few that I tend to return to again and again, for the simple pleasure of it, if not for the inspiration they provide: painters Cy Twombly and Tapies, sculptors Eva Hesse and Eduardo Chillida and photographers: Jungjin Lee and Harry Gruyaert.
Are prints available of your work, and if so where can they be viewed or purchased?
Most of my photographs from the past 5 years that are featured on my website and also on flickr (which I use as my visual diary) are for sale.
I can be contacted via my website www.stima-images.com or
flickr : https://www.flickr.com/photos/casualties/