MARTINA HOOGLAND IVANOW – SPEEDWAY
2014-03-10As her recent series, each of her images are imbued in a dark mesmerizing aesthetic which conveys in her images a heightened presence as real as it is poetic. “I am not aware of constructing a technique, lighting a selection of subject are choices that every photographer makes, that combined to make a personal statement. If I choose a very soft lighting, it is to capture something thatâs very hard to take in”, says Hoogland Ivanow.
Speedway is a statement, a series with almost alien-like figures in a fictive world but at the same way very human. Her works often deal with reflections and personal definitions. The portraits of drivers with the masks on are very strong and almost frightening. The connection between you as a viewer and the audience at the Speedway Arenas are tight. One image – at night of course – you find the arena lightning reflecting in shoulders. Like from a sublime flash or like knights in shiny armours. Another shows a man on his knees, like in a ritual on the icy track.
There is a thread between Hoogland Ivanow´s former series all the way through to her newer works. Her excellent skills of defining odd groups, societies or subcultures, like in her series Satellite, and making sublime works out of it, are enacted in the series Speedway.
Exhibition runs through to March 22nd, 2014
Swedish Photography
Karl-Marx-Allee 62
10243
Berlin
