Thandiwe Muriu
location: Nairobi, KenyaThandiwe Muriu is a Kenyan artist known for creating surreal illusions in a unique mix of vibrant textiles, cultural practices, and beauty ideologies. Working with the kitenge fabric, a distinct African cloth, she makes her subjects both disappear and serve as a canvas of reflection to the questions of womanhood, identity and its evolution over time. Her illusions are completed by handmade accessories, constructed from reimagined objects associated with Kenyan daily life. Merging history and the present, Muriu pairs each work with an African proverb, expressing the collected oral wisdom of generations past even as she communicates culture in a visual form.
Born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, Thandiwe discovered photography at age 14, experimenting with her father's old Nikon camera. Self-taught, she immersed herself in books and video tutorials, learning from every resource she could find, as Kenya did not have any formal photography schools. By age 17, she was working professionally, and by 23 had shot her first solo advertising campaign. By 2019, she was photographing campaigns for some of the largest companies in East Africa.
As the sole woman operating in the male-dominated advertising photography industry in Kenya, Thandiwe repeatedly confronted questions around the role of women in society, the place of tradition, and her own self-perception. These experiences inspired her first work, the Camo series, a project of cultural reflection. Camo was the catalyst for her to push new boundaries in her photography, leading her into a deeply personal artistic journey.
Even though she is still a young artist, Thandiwe is a rising star of contemporary photography. Her works are part of significant museum and public collections like Collection Gervanne + Matthias Leridon, Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, and UHODA Collection, as well as being a Rockefeller Foundation Residency alumni, among others.
She currently resides in Nairobi, Kenya where she teaches workshops and regularly travels for assignments.
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Lauren Greenfield
location: Los Angeles, USGreenfield is an American artist, documentary photographer, and documentary filmmaker. She has published three photographic monographs, directed four documentary films, exhibited in museums, and published in magazines and other publications.
In January 2016, Greenfield was honored by the International Center for Photography with the "2016 Spotlights Awards" (annual award honoring female artist in visual arts using photography or film). In December 2015, Greenfield was named the "Most Awarded Director in 2015" by AdAge for her work on #likeagirl. In July 2015, Greenfield was named one of the top 10 directors in Adweek’s Most Creative 100 People of 2015. In September 2015, she won the Emmy Award Best TV Commercial for #likeagirl. In January 2012, Greenfield was awarded the Sundance Film Festival Directing Award, US Documentary 2012 for her feature documentary film, The Queen of Versailles. She has been honored three times by American PHOTO magazine, starting with being named one of five "Breakthrough Artists" in the July/August 1995 issue. In 2003, American PHOTO magazine named her one of the "The 25 Most Important Photographers Now". In April 2005, she shared the third spot of the "100 Most Important People in Photography", again in American Photo magazine. She has been twice nominated for the Best Director Award by the DGA (Directors Guild of America) for Documentaries in 2012 and for commercials in 2015. She has received many photography awards and grants, including the Art Directors Club Gold Cube for Photography, National Geographic Grant, the ICP Infinity Award for Young Photographer (1996), a Hasselblad Foundation Grant, the NPPA Community Awareness Award, and the People's Choice Award at the Moscow Biennial.
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Ben Arpea
location: Paris, FranceBorn into a family of art lovers and collectors, Ben Arpea has been immersed in a rich artistic universe since childhood, where he began creating, drawing, and painting. Ben Arpea gained recognition in 2020 with a series of paintings in which he developed a singular artistic language characterised by geometric abstraction evolving towards the semi-figurative, utilising flat areas of colour and texture. He pays homage to the figures of modern and contemporary art that he admires – Tom Wesselmann, David Hockney, Jonas Wood, André Breton – and is fully part of a new generation of creators from art, design and fashion, celebrating colour and material in a simple and immediate relationship with the times. Anchored in a dreamlike dimension oscillating between semi-figurative and abstract expressionism, Ben Arpea’s work questions the century-old motifs and canons of classical landscape and still life, reinterpreted through a contemporary artistic language. Between the real and the unreal, Ben Arpea paints frozen and perfect images, proposing a moving interpretation of pop art and surrealism. Ben Arpea always draws his inspiration from suspended moments, gleaned from his travels.
Ben Arpea invites the viewer to enter into synesthesia with his paintings, each one being invited to project his or her own memories in an intimate and familiar dialogue. Omnipresent in his creations, the dream becomes a poetic experience that translates on the canvas by singular forms and meticulous work on colours and textures, infusing his work with a melancholic and unreal softness.
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Blaise Cepis
location: NY & LA, USACepis is an established photographer and director known for creating work that is bright, warm, playfully absurd, subtly opulent, and a touch surreal—a celebration of the exaggerated human condition and the unique traits that make people unforgettable.
After graduating from Parsons School of Design, Blaise began his career as an Art Director at leading agencies like JWT, Mother, and Sid Lee, shaping campaigns for iconic brands such as Vespa, Cadillac, Red Bull, PepsiCo, Absolut, and Smirnoff. Since stepping behind the lens, he’s seamlessly blended his commercial experience with fine art sensibilities to craft work for an impressive roster of collaborators, including Calvin Klein, Adidas, Standard Hotels, Virgin Hotels, Away Travel, Remy Martin, Velveeta, Bombas, Chevrolet, Headspace, Parade, Impossible Foods, The New Yorker, NBC, and Vice.
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Guillaume Lavrut
location: Paris, FranceFrom a young age, Guillaume Lavrut has had a passion for drawing, which naturally led him to pursue an art career. Currently an artistic director at an agency specialising in luxury goods, he has been exploring the possibilities offered by photography for many years. Every light, shape, and colour is a potential subject for him, transforming everyday life into a visual playground. The omnipresent, almost obsessive image culture that permeates his profession follows him behind the lens. Taken on the fly, his photographs capture mischievous moments. A subtle blend of simplicity, geometry, and contemplation.
Curious and contemplative, I love simple things and tracking down details. Captured on the fly, mischievous snapshots, colour, and geometry become his playground. “I completely identify with this quote from Robert Capa: ‘The photos are there, all you have to do is take them.’”
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