ARTIST STATEMENT

I am working with photography and post-photography, sometimes I also do video and performance art. I compose my photographic pictures like paintings and use cameras to perpetuate my mental compositions. Impressions and expressions are the most important factors. When I started working with photography I was visually inspired by painting and photography of the Victorian Era as well as the symbolism and the expressionism from the turn of the last century. I use principles of nostalgia and the the Victorian portrayal of morbid beauty, the obsession with death. Most of my series are self-portraits which is probably one of the reasons why I use rather feminine themes like classical fairy tale heroines, fairies, folklore figures or female saints. I like to play with strong characters – I started with self stylization as a saint and went through interpretations of Snowhite or personas from slovak folk myths to the creation of modern female figures that are yet to be named.
My way of working is very intuitive. I am constantly looking for inspiring places, for places with some kind of history and for places that evoke some more or less precise association. I insert myself into these settings with only my body or with requisites, I explore my first association and let myself be guided by the place, the circumstances and my intuition.

BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1982, Michaela Knizova grown up in Slovakia where she finished her art studies in New Media in Košice, in summer 2014. Michala currently lives and works in Luxembourg. She works primarily with photography and post-photography, while sometimes also engaging with video and performance art.