Photo London 2023

Litvak Contemporary is proud to announce its participation in Photo London 2023, featuring artists Itamar Freed and Kristina Chan.

Itamar Freed and Kristina Chan present photographic works that search for the idea of realness in the natural world. Influenced by post-impressionism, ideas surrounding the classification and preservation of historical artifacts, nature, and Japanese printing techniques, the works question the veracity of the photograph in the interplay between the real and the fantastic. As in a lucid dream, the artists control the narrative, characters and environment in the depicted landscapes. The works are digitally and analogously manipulated, combining both curated environments (such as museums, zoos, and digital materials) along with nature photography to question verisimilitude and how we shape our memories and concepts of nature. The photographs include cyanotypes printed on hand-made Japanese paper, lithographs, etchings, and pigment prints. The artists utilize both historic and contemporary techniques to decontextualize the image and our expectations of how these traditional techniques can be presented.

The artists studio is a varying environment for the duo. It shifts between the darkroom, print studio and nature itself. As a duo, the artists work together, documenting wildness and seasons across the globe. The exchange takes place virtually as well as physically forming a hybrid practice that opens up a space for reinterpretation and conversation about how nature is conveyed to us and represented differently across the planet artificially and naturally. 

This body of work invites reflection on the generosity, beauty and continuity of nature. It is a study of aesthetics through an empathy for nature, a celebration of nature.