Photos by Tanja Deman

About Tanja Deman and her work

Tanja Deman is a visual artist who was born in Split, Croatia in 1982. She received her BFA and MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and has since been included in at least 24 exhibitions, 4 of them being solo and the majority of them being held in Croatia and Austria. Tanja Deman’s art is highly inspired by her interest in architecture, geological formations, the relationship between human and nature and the physical and emotional perceptions of specific spaces. Throughout Tanja’s career, she has produced many series, the ones I am most inspired by include:

• Fernweh

Fernweh is a series which explores the extreme contrast and effects of modern cities to the landscape. The images in this series refer to the ideas of man conquering the natural environment and the longing to escape from urban environments.

• Sight Densification

Sight Densification is a series which is based on the aura of coexistent urban infrastructure such as skyscrapers, bridges, dams and roads and their dramatic relation to nature. These images have been edited to create a more exaggerated city landscape which features both an urban environment and natural forms.

• Collective Narratives

Collective narratives is a series of photographs in which Tanja Dean framed natural environments within theatrical spaces with audiences. When making this series, Tanja was interested in different types of spectatorship and architectural settings and the act of a large group of people gathering to experience something together.

Overall, I am inspired by Tanja Deman’s creative tie between nature and humans in these series and how she makes a false environment look like reality. I would like for my own image to look as real and impactful as Tanja Demans and I will do this by ensuring that the features of the landscape I create look like they belong. In addition, I think the series which my vision is most similar to would be Fernweh as, although you can tell the landscape isn’t real, it just works and that is what I am hoping to do with the Industrial areas of Jersey.

Image Analysis

This is a photograph by Tanja Deman which displays an audience inside a theatre who, instead of watching a play, appear to be looking at a depiction from a woodland. This piece of work is part of a collection by Tanja Deman called ‘Collective Narratives’. Tanja Deman wanted this image to give the impression that a large group of people have gathered to experience something and observe together. I personally think that Tanja Deman has displayed this image particularly in an attempt to get people to make a change and reduce environmental impacts. In this image, there is also a high contrast between the theatre and depiction which highlights what she wants you to see (the forest). There are also clear leading lines in this image which are the balconies in the theatre. These lines lead your eyes to the focal point, the depiction, as well as the fact that it looks as if this depiction is lighting up the room. Finally, this image looks as if it was taken using a high aperture as there is a large depth of field and a fast shutter speed as there is no motion blur from the audience and the details in the image are very clear.