Andrea Zvadova: “I love transforming human features into imaginary worlds”

Can you tell us a bit about how you became a photographer? And tell us something about your pictures.

As a teenager I fell in love with photography and have been drawn to it since.

Through working in the modelling industry I decided to follow my passion in a professional way and work as a photographer. Hence my work is influenced by studio photography, using lights and creating a scene from scratch as I envision.

Photo: Andrea Zvadova

Please share something about your images. What is your special interest? How do you choose the colors, composition, themes etc.? 

I pay attention to details and intricacies that come from close up imagery.

All my subject choices, composition, colours are more intuitive choices that come from my aesthetics. It may be constructively prepared but the final results are always the outcome of what speaks to me, what creates an immediate trigger.

Where does this interest come from?

I’m interested in nature, details, colours. It varies from a solemn minimalism to a bold mix of textures and colours. I’d say I like to observe, like a sponge I absorb all the outside information to transform it into my own world.

Photo: Andrea Zvadova

How do you get inspired? And what inspires you the most? Films, books, or magazines? Or what surrounds you?

The biggest inspiration is always nature. It has been an infinite source of ideas and influences for me. Science is another great source, optics, physics... Science goes very much hand in hand with art.

What was your first camera?

The first camera I used was an old Practica that belonged to my uncle, I was shooting mainly on bw film back then. Later on, when I was playing with the idea of pursuing photography professionally, I was using Canon analogue and then digital. As my work process is constructed primarily in the studio and it is a slower process, I mainly use medium format cameras, Hasselblad or Phase One.

Photo: Andrea Zvadova

What else should we know about you?

I was born and raised in Slovakia, now based in London. My photography focuses on beauty, portrait and fine art. I love to work with details in my work, close up studies of human features transforming skin and hair into abstract landscapes and imaginary worlds. In my floral series I focus on the use of colours, and create a photographic hyper-colour space in which dreaming and imagination are a leading link to escape the narrative of the predictable.

The series PARALLELS represent that world - the perfect world of dreams. It also represents the comparison of the real and the potential, the dream and the blurred lines in between these worlds.

I've been creating warped, abstracted images of floral still lives. Each image has been created with practical effects in camera without any further manipulation.

My aim is to create imagery that encourages a viewer stop and explore, dissect and analyse. It reflects on what is real, how we perceive the world in front of us and how we see ourselves. The entire set is photographed in the studio with studio lights. Andrea creates the imagery using practical effects involving physics and optics.

I have an ongoing project called ‘Pigment’, a series of portraits of people who were born with albinism. Pigment has received significant attention and won several awards and I have been selected as one of Hasselblad Heroines.

I work with both digital and analogue photography including old alternative photography techniques.