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moments by zsuzsanna nagy

I aspire to transform reality and create worlds with my work. In a process of simplification and abstraction, I reconfigure my surroundings. Impressionistic, atmospheric, and sometimes surreal, the images afford a dreamlike view of ordinary things. They oscillate between abstraction and figuration.

I am a peripatetic artist; my work emerges from practices of walking in my urban environment. I walk around with a sense of openness and active receptivity. Like a haiku poet, I look to capture the human experience in the simplest of terms.

My intention with creating this show is to devise an immersive experience and construct a contemplative space viewers can find refuge in, away from the tumult of the world.

a single-channel looping photography installation, 2020.

viewing recommendations: open in YouTube, full screen view, sitting, dark & quiet

I employ the visual language of photography, yet I subvert expectations about photographic representation. I deliberately neglect precision and detail in order to invoke ambiguity or mystery. Through the use of transparency, shallow depth of field, and long or multiple exposure, I create layered, abstracted images.

I embrace accidents and unanticipated possibilities in my process. I choose an instinctive approach to making pictures—I work largely from intuition rather than intellect. I cultivate an aptitude for serendipity. The resulting photographs are raw and convey a momentary response to the world.

I want to speak to a more emotional experience of the world. The images are evocations more than representations. The vagueness and indeterminacy creates space for the viewer to let go of intellectual command and prioritize feeling over thinking. The world dissolves into rhythm, movement, and amorphous shapes, becoming devoid of actuality.

My photography is informed by the experience of living in a foreign land. As an immigrant—a Hungarian American—I inhabit a space between two cultures. I engage with my outsider status and the pain of loss, both cultural and personal. My images respond to notions of belonging, alienation, and solitude.

I live my artistic practice every day. At the end of each day I publish one image on my blog. This online repository of my daily pictures preserves tiny bits of my existence and experience. However arbitrary the depicted moments, this fragmentary collection may well be perceived as a visual diary, as a record of my days.

Credits:

zsuzsanna nagy