Where did you grow up? Did that influence how you became the artist you are nowadays?
I was born in Montes Claros - MG (Brazil), a city with about three hundred thousand inhabitants at the time, and with a small-town feel, because wherever I went in the city there were always people who knew my family. I lived there until I was 22, when I moved to Uberlândia.
I have always liked art and my experiences in my hometown certainly have an impact on my work.
My father was a farmer, and on the farm I felt free, I could be myself. I have very fond memories of how I felt in contact with nature, which was a huge contrast to how I felt in the city, living with my maternal family who never showed me any love, never complimented me, never gave me emotional support in difficult situations. What attracts me to big cities is art. Other than that, I prefer contact with nature.
When I started planning this new career I visualised myself photographing nude or semi-nude people in contact with nature. Then these images began to develop in my head, becoming more complex, and when I realised this complexity, I lost my fear of dedicating myself fully to art. When I realised that my desire to leave fashion behind was a desire to leave behind all the suffering of my childhood and adolescence and to eliminate abusive relationships from my life, there was no turning back. Now I am happy working on some projects and looking for sponsors to carry them out. During the period of career transition, I made some decisions that impact the way I work, aiming to create, in this new career, a better, healthier, more prosperous and sustainable reality than the reality I created working as a stylist.
When did you start taking pictures?
I was already over 18 years old when I got my first camera. I don't remember exactly when it was, but it was an analog compact camera that I used to do academic photography work during my advertising course. My professor praised my academic work a lot, my perspective on the subjects I photographed. Before university, I used it very little. Analog photography doesn't appeal to me because we don't see the results immediately and mistakes can happen that can ruin even great photos. Then I had another one, a compact digital camera, when I was about 32 years old, which stopped working properly after falling on the street during a travel writing course I was taking. In 2011, I bought my first DSLR camera, and my first photos with it were at the two biggest fashion weeks in Brazil at the time. I received the camera a few hours before a fashion show. Now I alternate between this camera and mirrorless cameras in my current projects, depending on the result I'm looking for.
Where do you think your photographic style came from?
My style is made up of countless references, the biggest one being my personal development. I like to look inside, see what I've learned about myself and the world, and show that in the form of images to people.
The awareness that some people will never love me, no matter what I do, allows me to take more risks; to explore possibilities, materials, places, textures, angles; to use something different to create the right lighting for a photo shoot; using different materials to dress the models (or clients)... Being authentic allows me to have the support of those who are also authentic and who have healthy self-esteem.
Self-knowledge also allows me to understand that the beauty of art lies in being interpreted in different ways by people according to their level of self-knowledge and their repertoire. I have a narrative in my head when I develop a photography project or a work of art, and I am aware that many people will not interpret the images the way I imagined them. This double meaning is present in several of my works. Sometimes the same work can be interpreted in multiple different ways and what the person interprets tells me a lot about him/her. I think that is beautiful!
You said that you like the viewer to have their own interpretation of your work. Why do you think that is more important than anchoring a different message or context in the photograph?
I don't think it is more important. It is about my way of seeing things. Imposing my worldview on my audience is not always the best thing to do. There are works where I explain the story and meaning, guiding people to understand the work as I imagined it. Other works, usually more complex, I leave open to interpretation, or I only give a superficial clue about the subject. I usually do this with personal development issues, because the clues are enough to guide those who are on the path to self-knowledge, and more direct explanations would not be understandable to those who are not seeking self-knowledge. In some cases, I explain complex works based on my personal experiences.
I want to express my vision. The interpretation that each person gives of my art depends on several factors that are not under my control.
I do not hide, I have many opinions and values that are different from many people and I am authentic. I do not impose my opinions and values as absolute truths and I do not accept that other people try to impose their values and beliefs in my life. If someone serves me a dish that I do not like, I try to eat what I like in that dish and leave the rest aside. People can choose to enjoy the beauty of my work without thinking about what I want to convey beyond the beauty of each image.
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Nycka Nunes
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