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Email
axtra.theme@.com -
Phone
+(02) - 094 980 547 -
Address
Nenuya Centre, Elia Street,
New York, USA
Phone
+(02) - 094 980 547Address
Nenuya Centre, Elia Street,
Anchored in a deep connection to the landscape and fascination with the photo-based object, my work investigates how observing Nature informs contemplation, perception, and identity. My process involves daily walks to connect with the landscape. I distill the gleaned information into sketches which I then translate into photographic image-objects in the darkroom using light, wet plate collodion chemistry, paper cut-outs, cliché verre, and brushes. The experimental camera-less compositions created through multiple exposures allude to landscapes, light and atmospheric phenomena, and organic forms found in nature. Rather than transcribing the observed landscape, I seek to record intuitive responses that speak to the felt and ineffable experiences of being fully present in the landscape: to a sense of wonder, awe, and permeating immanence, while simultaneously meditating on loss, hope, and meaning.
Straddling the line between representation and abstraction, the pared down visual vocabulary arises from the immediacy of the photogram as I explore the boundaries of the photographic medium, placing it in conversation with painting, collage, graphic arts, and sculpture. The compositions, ranging in mood from contemplative stillness to dynamism and movement, employ shape, artifact, gesture, and tonal range to explore balance and rhythm.
Nadezda Nikolova (b. 1978, former Yugoslavia) is an artist presently working with wet plate collodion photograms. Collodion—which uses a thick solution of nitrocellulose in ether and alcohol—is mixed with salts, and spread over a glass or metal plate, which the photographer sensitizes in a bath of silver nitrate before making exposures.
Nadezda Nikolova studied historic processes at the George Eastman Museum and at the University of Kentucky. Her art has been featured in solo exhibitions in the United States, United Kingdom, and France, and her pieces are held in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, USA), Victoria & Albert Museum (London, UK), Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art (Riyadh, SA), Monterey Museum of Art (Monterey, California), and Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University (Bloomington, Indiana). Publications from the Washington Post to Arab News to the Architectural Review have highlighted her work.
In 2023, Nazraeli Press published her monograph entitled Elemental Forms, in collaboration with HackelBury Fine Art. She has lectured about her work at various universities and photographic institutions, including SUNY Plattsburgh (New York), Penumbra Foundation (New York), Center for Photographic Art (California), and Santa Fe Workshops (Arizona). She was a finalist for the 2018 LensCulture Exposure Awards.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023 Unique Works, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2023 Elemental Forms, Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris, FR
2022 Elemental Forms, Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, CA
2021 Elemental Forms: Landscape, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
DUO EXHIBITIONS
2025 LANDSCAPE & ALCHEMY, A Duo Show Featuring Katja Liebmann & Nadezda Nikolova,
HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK (Upcoming)
2025 DUAL PERSPECTIVES, A Duo Show Featuring Joanne Dugan & Nadezda Nikolova, Sous Les Etoiles Gallery, New York, NY
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 Portraits, Landscapes, Abstractions, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2024 In the Night, SAMoCA Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
2023 Sacred Encounters, Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA
2023 SHAPE, Simone Klein Art Advisory, Cologne, DE
2023 Direct Contact: Cameraless Photography Now, Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University Bloomington, IN
2022 Art+Books, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2021 Waiting II, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2021 LIGHTWAVES: Experimental Photo Art from California, Marshall Contemporary, Venice, CA
2021 Art in the Plague Year, UCR Arts: California Museum of Photography, Los Angeles, CA
2020 Imagining an Island, Symposium in association with Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre, UHI Centre for Rural Creativity, and the Art School at University of the Highlands and Islands, North Uist, Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, UK
2020 Waiting, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2019 Twenty-One, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2019 Out of the Dark, Cabrillo Gallery, Aptos, CA
2018 Alchemy, three person show w. Pierre Cordier and Garry Fabian Miller, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2018 Photo Sensitive, Olson-Larsen Galleries, Des Moines, IA
2018 The Voies Off Festival, The Best of LensCulture: Volume 2, Arles, France
2018 Alae, two person show w. Kaden Kratzer, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR, USA
2017 Unique: Alternative Processes, A Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX
2017 Silhouette, Duncan Miller Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2017 Little by Little, Art Intersection, Gilbert, AZ
2017 13th Annual National Alternative Process Competition, SohoPhoto Gallery, New York, NY
2017 Other Worlds, SE Center for Photography, Greenville, NC
2017 Light Sensitive 2017 — Celebrating Images From The Darkroom Art Intersection, Gilbert, AZ
2016 Glass & Tin, Don’t Take Pictures
2016 Intimate Alchemy: 2016 Annual Juried Exhibition Plates-to-Pixels
2015 Analog Mania, Timisoara, Romania
2015 Illuminate, The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO
2015 New Alchemy-Lexington Camera Club, Anne Wright Wilson Gallery, Georgetown College, Georgetown, KY
2015 ACTINIC Festival, Scotland
2015 What’s Old Is New Again: Alternative Photographic Processes, Gallery 136 1/2 at PhotoSynthesis, Manchester, CT
2015 H2O, A Smith Gallery, Johnston City, TX
2015 Revela-T: Photo Festival of Analog Photography, Vilassar de Dalt, Spain
2015 Lens-less, M S Rezny Studio & Gallery, Lexington, KY
2014 Aura, Lightbox Photographic, Astoria, Oregon
2014 Theme: ICON {Representations of Semiotics}, SEITIES, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
2014 Altered Views, Lightbox Photographic, Astoria, OR
MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom
SAMoCA Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA, United States
Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University Bloomington, IN, United States
ARTIST BOOKS AND MONOGRAPHS
NADEZDA NIKOLOVA | One Picture Book Two #33 : Elemental Forms
Published by Nazraeli Press
ISBN: 978-1-59005-560-1
Hardcover, 6 x 8 1/2, 16 pages, 12 duotone plates, 1 original signed photograph.
SELECT PRESS
2025 Feature, The Georgia Review, Summer 2025 Issue (upcoming)
2024 A constellation of artworks pays tribute to the night in Riyadh, Arab News
2023 Feature, It’s Nice That Magazine
2023 Interview, Analog Forever Magazine
2023 Exhibition Review, Nadezda Nikolova: Elemental Forms, Musée Magazine
2022 American Connection, Black & White Photography Magazine Issue 269
2022 Nadezda Nikolova: Elemental Forms LensCratch
2021 Natura Infirma, Fraction Media Issue 151
2021 Nadezda Nikolova-Kratzer capture l’émotion derrière le paysage, Fisheye Magazine
2021 Nadezda Nikolova-Kratzer: The photogram offers endless possibilities, British Journal of Photography
2021 These Stunning Photograms Are a Meditative, Poetic Rumination on Nature, Washington Post
2021 What We Do In The Darkroom, Architectural Review September 2021: Light
2021 In Focus, HackelBury Fine Art
2020 Jill Enfield’s Guide to Photographic Alternative Processes, Routledge; 2nd edition (March 11, 2020)
2019 Rule Breakers, Don’t Take Pictures
2019 Interview+Feature, Rfotofolio
2018 Special Issue: Alternative Processes, July/ August 2018, Shadow & Light Magazine
2018 Prior to Light, The Od Review
2018 The Best of LensCulture, Volume 2., Photobook
2017 Feature, Plates To Pixels
2017 Oxford American, Issue 99
2016 Lens Culture Editors’ Picks & Explore: Alternative Process Category
2015 Interview, Monovisions Black & White Photography
ART FAIRS
2025 Expo Chicago, Sous Les Etoiles Gallery, Chicago, IL
2025 The Photography Show by AIPAD, HackelBury Fine Art, New York City, NY
2024 Paris Photo, Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris, FR
2024 The Photography Show by AIPAD, Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, New York City, NY
2024 The Photography Show by AIPAD, HackelBury Fine Art, New York City, NY
2024 Art Paris, Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris, FR
2023 Art Miami, HackelBury Fine Art, Miami, FL
2023 PhotoFairs, HackelBury Fine Art, New York City, NY
2023 Art Paris, Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris, FR
2022 Paris Photo, Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris, FR
2022 Art Miami, HackelBury Fine Art, Miami, FL
2022 Masterpiece London, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2022 The Photography Show by AIPAD, HackelBury Fine Art, New York City, NY
2021 Art Miami, HackelBury Fine Art, Miami, FL
2021 Paris Photo, HackelBury Fine Art, Paris, FR
2021 Photo London, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2021 Masterpiece Online, HackelBury Fine Art
2020 Art Miami, HackelBury Fine Art, Online Edition
2020 Photo London, HackelBury Fine Art, Digital Fair
2020 Paris Photo New York, HackelBury Fine Art, New York City, NY
2019 Art Miami, HackelBury Fine Art, Miami, FL
2019 Paris Photo, HackelBury Fine Art, Paris, FR
2019 Photo London, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2019 The Photography Show by AIPAD, HackelBury Fine Art, New York City, NY
2018 Paris Photo, HackelBury Fine Art, Paris, FR
2018 Photo London, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2018 Photo London, LensCulture Exposure Awards 2018, London, UK
LECTURES
2025 Belfast Photo Festival, Belfast, Ireland
2023 Penumbra Foundation, NYC, New York, USA
2023 Santa Fe Workshops Arizona, USA
2022 Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, California, USA
2022 SUNY Plattsburgh, Plattsburgh, New York, USA
2018 University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR, USA
EDUCATION
MPA, University of Kentucky
BSc Natural Resources & Environmental Science, University of Kentucky