Here at theprintspace we have a talented and dedicated team, both in and outside of our studio. Ieva Austinskaite, our Giclee printer is no exception- read below to hear more about Ieva and her work!
Hello Ieva, tell us a little bit about yourself and where you are from?
I am a 23 year-old photographer, originally from Lithuania, based in London, where I do most of my photographic work at the moment.
Tell us your story – how did you get into photography?
I could say, that interest in fine art and specifically painting was my first step towards discovering passion in photography. For the last couple of years while studying at the Kaunas High School of Arts, I started experimenting with photography techniques, and realised that this is the medium, which I want to explore and extend in terms of technique and subject matter. That is how I ended up studying Ba Photography at Middlesex University in London. I found a lot of areas of interest for my work here and photography became a way to see and understand things around me in more depth.
What was the concept and inspiration behind the work, and how did the project come about?
Passengers is a series about people engaged in a very similar routine (public transport), but at the same time being completely detached and concentrated on their own personal matters. The concept came to me very simply, while being a passenger myself and noticing tendencies of life in the city. I tend to take my inspiration from everyday routine of people, often being engaged into something repetitive, in this case a motive of journey. To me, portraits speak about individual stories of people, yet convey familiar feelings experienced by us all. Apathy, exhaustion, alienation and detachment come across very vividly in public transport and I wanted show how people behave while in a constantly changing environment and how sometimes it becomes an intimate private space of the individual. The project consists of a series of photographs, a book, as well as a short movie shot separately.
What inspires you?
Inspiration for me mainly comes from constantly observing the world around me: interest in people, their routine, moments of being with themselves and their thoughts. I am also fascinated in how we shape the space we live in and how it changes with our influence. I use photography to show all these different layers of human nature and environment; it allows me to get closer and explore subjects, which intrigue me.
A lot of my inspiration comes from studying fine art. I was always and still am very keen of Mark Rothko’s work. His paintings for me is a great example of how artist created a beautiful balance in terms of composition and color, but most importantly managed to fill his work with so many possibilities for interpretation and understanding. I admire Saul Leiter’s work and the way he poetically depicted city life, while seeing with an eye of a painter through lens. Robert Frank is a big inspiration for me with his excellent and consistent documentation of human nature and places as well as Antanas Sutkus, Joel Meyerowitz William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Andreas Gursky. That is just to mention few.
What’s next for you? Are there any new projects in the works?
Currently I am working on few projects focusing on urban routine, but they are still in quite early stages at the moment. I like to take time while making my work and allow myself to see it differently every time I edit, getting back to seeing photographs after a longer period of time and constantly observing and documenting world around me. That way I get to know my subject in more depth and understand different aspects of it as well as ways of showing it.
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