Description
OD Photo Prize 2024 | Judges’ Pick
Selected by Katy Barron
Photo Oxford, Director
“I selected Yurian Quintanas Nobel as these constructed images have a surreal quality that is original, challenging and visually pleasing. They work as still lives but also question humans’ relationship to the natural world and our place within it. The images reference historic botanical photography but are also clearly contemporary in that they use a mixture of digital and real constructions, which produces a complex and strange result which has wit and energy.”
— Katy Barron
After Yurian Quintanas Nobel (b.1983) completed a degree as a senior image technician and specializing in photojournalism at IDEP (Barcelona), he had the privilege of assisting renowned National Geographic photographers Tino Soriano and Annie Griffiths Belt. Since 2007, Yurian has been pursuing his own photographic projects, earning recognition through awards and fellowships such as 1st Prize at Vanguardia Magazine (2007), the XIII International Gijón Photojournalism scholarship (2009), a Magnum Photos workshop with Chien-Chi Chang (2009), and an Honorable Mention in Travel Photographer of the Year (2011).
Image Description | Watering eggplants at midnight, which is when the biosynthetic phase of photosynthesis is occurring, activates a unique phenological phenomenon in botany. The natural growth programming of the eggplant is altered causing instant cloning of the fruits and causing production to multiply up to eight times. This type of crop is dangerous because it can cause trypophobia.
Artist Statement | “Gardens and orchards offer a unique perspec1ve to understand the complex and dynamic rela1onship between humans and the natural environment. For centuries, the transmission of knowledge acquired in hor1cultural prac1ces played a major role in the evolu1on of our society both culturally and technologically. But in recent years, mainly due to the conveniences offered by new technologies and their exponen1al growth, more and more people have become disconnected from nature, resul1ng in an increasingly digital society that lacks the basic knowledge to understand natural processes in general.
“The Ignorant Gardener” is a photographic project that draws on ar1s1c movements such as construc1vism, ready-made, bauhaus or even surrealism. Through the mixture of different ar1s1c disciplines such as sculpture and digital photography, the purpose is to create a series of unlikely images with composi1ons outside of any physical logic to make us reflect on the lack of knowledge that contemporary genera1ons have of one of the oldest trades in the world, hor1culture.
The procedure consists of crea1ng ephemeral sculptures from the combina1on of different elements and objects that can be found in a vegetable garden. Vegetables, artefacts and tools that farmers use on a daily basis for the proper func1oning of their crops are selected and grouped together without any func1onal link and focusing purely on their aesthe1c characteris1cs. These sculptures are constructed in-situ and with the landscape formed by the orchards as a backdrop. Finally, these sculptures are immortalised in the form of a photographic s1ll life, and once the purpose has been achieved, each object is returned to its original place.
Each image is accompanied by a cap1on that underlines the concept of this project by emulating the texts from gardening books and catalogues in a surreal tone.“ — Yurian Quintanas Nobel
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