Inspired by the arts – Ning Kai and Sabrina Scarpa turn to impressionism and Alban Champion to music – our readers picks #348 imagine stories as unique as they are delicate.
Ning Kai and Sabrina Scarpa
Dutch artists Ning Kai and Sabrina Scarpa are partners both at work and in life. The two artists photograph the landscape around them. “We are better together – we capture the beauty of moments in life”, they tell us. Immersed in green nature, they develop, with great sensitivity, a language of their own, where the elements become tactile and textured. The water in a stream, the graphic lines of a dark branch contrasting with the blue of the sky, the glittering reflection of the sun on the sea… In their images, wilderness becomes a subject in its own right – a model, a muse they cannot help but capture from every angle. “We aim to convey the spirit of the natural world through a feeling of awakening and enlightenment. Our influences? There are many… But above all, Asian art, modernism and impressionism”, they explain. An immersion in a luxuriant universe, where the human presence – although always there – fades away to better celebrate our planet’s breathtaking beauty.
© Ning Kai and Sabrina Scarpa
Alban Champion
Alban Champion, a 20-year-old light and camera operator, has been in love “with the feelings that images, when mixed with sound and a story, can provoke” since his childhood. It was during a trip to Canada that the young artist began shooting his friends with a disposable Kodak. “From that moment on, I understood the power of photography, the power of capturing moments. I then turned to film to better understand the technical aspects of the medium”, he recalls. In black and white, Alban Champion allows himself to be submerged by music – The Smiths, The Cure, Joy Division and Indochine, especially – to create delicate bodies of work, where blurry scenes and fragility dominate. “Monochromy was a real revelation for me. It’s the rendering that suits me best. It brings out visual sensations that I couldn’t find in colour work. It is a visual language translating something hidden deep inside me, through which I can tell melancholic, cold and nostalgic stories”, he explains. By multiplying formats and playing with edits, the photographer manages to create tales with luminous shadows and expressionist grain.
© Alban Champion
Cover picture: © Ning Kai and Sabrina Scarpa
