honorable mention
Lara Zankoul lebanon
title
The Unseen
The twelve photographs each display that which is known, and hint at that which is slowly revealed to be the truth. A water tank was constructed to achieve these various tableaux of life. Each photograph is thus divided into the surface above water and the space below the water level. The state of truth is to be found just under the water’s surface.
All photographs exhibited have soft colours and ethereal light. As if filtered in a delicate prism, hues of violet and lilac, pink and sky blues dominate and are often accentuated with bright pops of red, cobalt and black.
Zankoul’s practice of fine arts photography primarily appeared as a need to escape the binding life of the cubicle during her first full-time job. This need to evade reality was translated in her imagery: her compositions are contemporary fairy tales, which explore the charm and mystery of the human psyche. Whimsical and playful, they represent an attempt to invent new worlds, to push against the boundaries of our reality and escape the monotony of everyday life. The characters inhabiting Zankoul’s work are anonymous and timeless, universal symbols existing within a fantastical and surreal landscape.
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entry description
The Unseen presents two visions within one viewing experience; commenting not only on the surface of things, but also on what may lie hidden beneath. Kind of an iceberg effect...The twelve photographs each display that which is known, and hint at that which is slowly revealed to be the truth. A water tank was constructed to achieve these various tableaux of life. Each photograph is thus divided into the surface above water and the space below the water level. The state of truth is to be found just under the water’s surface.
All photographs exhibited have soft colours and ethereal light. As if filtered in a delicate prism, hues of violet and lilac, pink and sky blues dominate and are often accentuated with bright pops of red, cobalt and black.
about the photographer
Born in Lebanon in 1987, Lara Zankoul graduated from the American University of Beirut with a Masters in Economics. Zankoul was born photographically in 2008. Driven by passion, she taught herself photography and started an enriching journey in the artistic field. During 2009, she completed her 365 project, a personal mission in which she committed on taking a picture every day in a row for a year. She has participated in several local and international collective exhibitions such as the ‘Women’s Art Exhibition’ in Art Lounge Lebanon in 2011 and the 3rd edition of the Festival Photomed in the South of France in 2013. Part of the Shabab Ayyam incubator programme, she was an award recipient at the 2011 Shabab Ayyam Photography Competition and is represented by Ayyam Gallery since then. In her solo show in Ayyam Gallery in January 2013, she presented for the first time, her cinematographic work, which was auctioned in April 2013 at Christie’s Dubai.Zankoul’s practice of fine arts photography primarily appeared as a need to escape the binding life of the cubicle during her first full-time job. This need to evade reality was translated in her imagery: her compositions are contemporary fairy tales, which explore the charm and mystery of the human psyche. Whimsical and playful, they represent an attempt to invent new worlds, to push against the boundaries of our reality and escape the monotony of everyday life. The characters inhabiting Zankoul’s work are anonymous and timeless, universal symbols existing within a fantastical and surreal landscape.
back to gallery