Xavier Guardans: Self-Portraits | MONOVISIONS - Black & White Photography Magazine

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An avid traveler and explorer, Xavier Guardans is a photographer who captures the beauty of his surroundings and models with a total mastery of medium and a gifted skill for composition. The subject of our new exhibition of ‘Self-Portraits’ is the product of a decade’s work and travel to numerous countries.

Surrounded and inspired by a group of powerful female artists, Guardans’ black-and-white images, convey the confidence of women in the 21st century. The book of the same title, to be published in September 2016, is accompanied by the subjects’ voices.

Born in Barcelona in 1954, Guardans received his education at the Bournemouth College of Art in England, graduating with a degree in photography in 1982. Guardans has since had an extremely successful career with important exhibitions in Europe and USA, and has held shows at such prestigious museums as White Chapel Art Center in London (1981); Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de España, Madrid (1986); and Museo Contemporaneo de Ibiza (1998).

Guardans has traveled the world seeking subjects which appeal to his extreme fascination with nature and light, and elucidating the exquisiteness of the natural world through his lens. His artistic pursuits have taken him to Kenya, Japan, China, Patagonia, and California, to name only a few. During these journeys, Guardans utilizes his impressive technical and aesthetic skill to reveal the rare splendor latent in all parts of nature, whether that be in rock outcroppings in Utah or exotic trees in Chile. And throughout his photographic process, Guardans continually provides a humanistic touch to his subjects, casting his surroundings in a distinctive, compassionate light that makes whichever corner of the world that he portrays in his photos seem concurrently surreal and approachable. In this way, Guardans subtly reveals his own artistic style, while simultaneously exposing universal truths about natural beauty and our relationship to our surroundings.

Xavier Guardans ceaselessly continues his artistic pursuits, and currently lives and works in New York City. His work is included in the collections of several venerable cultural institutions, including The Center of Creative Photography in Tucson, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid.

Xavier Guardans
Self-Portraits
September 9 – 30, 2016

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