introducing our visitors: Hanan Kazma

Dr Hanan Kazma lives in Tripoli, Lebanon. She currently works as a paediatric dentist.

Hanan only recently began taking photographs, but is already an accomplished artist and much respected. In her work she explores the ideas of self and tries to re-examine the classic idea of portraiture, using a variety of in-camera and post-production techniques. Often working as her own model, she experiments with how to represent the inner factors that make up our image rather than the image we project from the outside.

Hanan is a very prolific artist and has already self published several books, some as a solo-artist, but also in collaboration with other international artists. In 2011 she had her first major solo-exhibition showing 120 photographs, also designing and producing the book accompanying the exhibition.

We will be exhibiting a range of her images that we hope will show the variety of techniques, styles and quality in Hanan's body of work so far. You can find more of her work here.

introducing our location: Abertillery

Abertillery is a town of approximately 10,000 people in South Wales, UK. Located in a beautiful valley and previously part of one of the biggest British mining districts, the town is now a quiet residential area with a small town centre and some independent local shops.

The town centre contains some well-preserved examples of 19th and early 20th century architecture and we will be occupying the shop above.

introducing our visitors: Nóra Barabás

Nóra Barabás was born and lives in Szeged, Hungary. Using photography as a form of self-expression, she captures the emotions, states of mind and atmosphere that inspire her. Her images are related to the self and perceptions of the self.

Nóra works primarily in black and white to better capture and visualise her “inner journey”.

As part of “Visitors”, we will be showing a selection of her analogue images. You can find more of Nóra’s works here.

As part of her artistic expression Nóra also collaborates with other photographers creating original images and diptychs, working both with analogue and digital tools. She runs features on her blog, bringing together the works of other artists and arranges them in an aesthetic and thoughtful way. Her journals are regularly posted here.

Nóra is a law student at Szeged University.

introducing our visitors: Birgit Zartl

In the words of Kalblut Magazine -

"Austrian artist, Birgit Zartl, is a unique talent when it comes to monochrome photography but to painting as well. Having studied psychology in Vienna she tries to depict the most hidden parts of the human mind, quite successfully so. Playing with light, the subconscious and the sublime she re-creates long forgotten realms in her mainly internal paintings and photographs."

Birgit was recently interviewed by said magazine and you can read the rest here.

We will be exhibiting images from "The Book of Appropriated Portraits" - digital collages created using found photographs.

While being both an experimental photographer and an accomplished painter, Birgit also works full time as a psychotherapist. You can see Birgit's images here and her paintings here, if that wasn't enough, she has also published a few books.

image courtesy of Nathan Duarte