Bony Ramirez
Craig Taylor
Dabin Ahn
Drew Dodge
Ina Jang
Ji Woo Kim
Jin Jeong
KangHee Kim
Sarah Lee
Shuyi Cao
Shyama Golden
Sophia Heymans
Yoora Lee
Yujie Li
Yuri Yuan
memory/
I have always wanted to be an artist, but I suppressed my dream of becoming one due to the rigid educational system in Korea. Then, when I moved to the United States, I began studying art and pursuing my dream. My older brother is also a painter, and he influenced me to follow the same path.
I started painting in college and didn’t get into photography until right before I graduated. I started experimenting with photography and treated digital photo collaging as a form of painting. My background in painting definitely informs how I look at color and composition.
Among many artists, Wolfgang Tillmans significantly influenced my practice and shifted my focus from painting to photography. His works helped me realize that the boundless possibilities in painting can also be explored in photography.
line/
When I first started making my Street Errands series, I began by photographing mundane scenes in New York City. One day, while on the street, waiting to capture a captivating image, I realized that I could create magical moments with my imagination rather than wait for miracles.As a DACA recipient, I’m restricted from traveling outside of the US. Instead, I will travel as far as I can from Hawaii to the West Coast. I can evoke the feeling of faraway travel by appreciating what is in front of me and developing my imagination around my immediate environment. By collaging everyday sights from New York to Los Angeles or merging interior and exterior scenes, I can create spaces that feel familiar, but not too familiar. In manipulating these images, I construct a form of surreal escapism.
When I shoot, I focus on building an archive. I draw inspiration from everyday errands, carrying my cameras around New York or while traveling across the country. I try not to think of each image as a complete or final work. I enjoy happy accidents, so I like to surprise myself and appreciate the process, rather than follow a sketch or rigid plan.
color/
I am drawn to vibrant contrasts of colors and light. Light is a powerful tool–it can make ordinary subjects glow and convey deep emotion. You can find subtle nuances in the colors of the sky or the light from sunrise and sunset. Geography also affects the variables of color and light. Shooting in LA is fun for me because the quality of sunlight has its own beauty and character. When I work, I comb through my archives of photographs and mix and match elements to develop a composition. I enjoy the element of experimentation in this process. I consider myself a self-taught photographer, and I don’t use Photoshop in a very traditional or technical way. I like breaking the rules and using Photoshop freely like a tool.
It’s interesting how my work could be seen as digital art because that’s not how I think of it. In my mind, I still see my process as a form of painting, just through a digital medium. That being said, I think that my practice challenges traditional notions of photography as a purely documentary medium. In the future, I would like to explore blurring the boundaries between photography and digital art.
I first took an interest in photography through my exposure to Instagram. I guess I naturally adapted to a highly digital world. First of all, I never imagined myself becoming a photographer or creating digital art. Thankfully, I found a medium that I could use to tell my story.
Gabrielle Luu is a writer based in Brooklyn, NY and the Editor-in-Chief of Civil Art.