House Magazine: Tereza Zelenkova

Here's the article I wrote for House magazine on photographer Tereza Zelenkova. I posted about her previously as I also filmed an interview with her for House Seven having seen her work at the RCA 2012 show. She's definitely one to watch.

TEXT:

Invoking the occult, mortality and mysticism in her monochrome images, Tereza Zelenkova presents vistas and artifacts from nature that nonetheless shimmer with a mysterious supernatural aura. To her, death isn’t the gateway to another world but the all-pervading full stop to life, and she explores a universe where neither religion nor science can provide us with all the answers. Working with a spontaneity that belies the depth and integrity of the final body of work, she explains that it’s all about the fine balance of intuition and editing...

What made you choose photography as your medium as an artist?

When I was 16 I tried photography and I immediately fell in love with it. I guess I was seduced with the lightness with which one can create an image by using a camera.

Is your technique more impulsive or constructed?

Through the years I have learnt to work quite effortlessly. I realized that if I try too much the results are not as good as if I just get carried away by a moment or an idea. For me, photography is certainly about intuitive knowing rather than rigorous thinking.


 What makes a photograph fine art rather than documentary?

Even though I’d consider my practice to belong more to the realm of art than documentary photography, I don’t see major disparities between these two modes of working in my work. I guess that my photographs lack ties with any particular place or event. They usually refer to imaginary spaces or the world as a whole. Perhaps if there was a genre of the “metaphysical document”, my photos could belong to it.

What themes have arisen in your work?

People often see my work as being quite dark and melancholic. I guess that’s because most of the things that I find beautiful usually contain an element of darkness and mystery, and this vision of beauty is something that I’m trying to capture in my photographs.

How do you edit images into a project?

It’s during the editing when I actually gain full control over a body of work. I have quite an analytical mind and I really enjoy the editorial aspect of photography. Taking a photograph is in a way nothing more than editing out a significant part of our field of vision in order to capture the one essential image.

And what’s in your mind when it comes to displaying your work?

My photographs are quite traditional, at least in as much as that they are silver gelatin prints of real things and people and they are not in any way digitally manipulated. At the same time I put them together in quite unusual way and together with my exhibition strategies I’m trying to push one’s expectations of what contemporary photography should look like. I enjoy taking liberties in the way in which I present my work.

www.terezazelenkova.com