I’ve been very fortunate to work with talented and down-to-earth female photographers such as Amanda Lopez (Mama Clothing photo shoots) and Nina Parks (Married to the Hustle album cover) and the way these ladies are able to capture the feeling and raw beauty of a culture is simply awing.

As a graphic designer, it’s very important for me to work with someone who can interpret the world I’m not able to immediately capture through my art. Working with these ladies has inspired finished products that leave me filled with gratitude and satisfaction.

Today’s post is on Isabel Muñoz, who is one of the most important and exciting figures in photography today but I can honestly say that I see Amanda Lopez and Nina Parks both being introduced in that same way, in the near future. Read on…

Ballet National De Cuba, 2001

Isabel Muñoz is renowned for using one of the most difficult photo developing techniques, platinotype, using platinum paper to produce superior quality B&W photographs. Her work tells stories through movement, body parts, and sensuality. Her black and white photos are a study of people through pieces of the human body or pictures of toreros, dancers or warriors, by using a handmade and meticulous process of developing.

Muñoz was born in Barcelona in 1951. When the Spanish photographer was 20 years old, she moved to Madrid and started studying photography in 1979 in Photocentro. In 1986, she had her first exhibition, “Toques” and for more than 20 years, she has continued to have exhibitions in several countries of the world. Her works can be found in the Maison Européenne de la Photographie de Paris, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, in New York, the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston and in private collections.

Muñoz’s work ranges from the political: a series of families in Malaysia with AIDS; to the cultural: a series of photos of the Surma tribes in southern Ethiopia; to the erotic: a series of arousing photos exploring the theme of giving into the senses.

It’s easy to see why Isabel Muñoz is one of the most respected photographers in Spain. She deservingly has won international acclaim. Her photographs consistently provoke not only thought, but deep intimate reactions as well. The quality of her work, and the subject matter, makes her exhibits both intellectually and physically stimulating.

Muñoz has won two World Press Awards for her artful documentary photographs from around the world. Her stunning body of intimate portraits of people from south Ethiopia, captures dignity and beauty of the people in scarified skin, piercings and ornamentation.

“The Mara - Casa de Las Americas” is a fierce yet breathtaking series of work where Muñoz documents life in prison.

Black and white portraits of prisoners leave the viewer speechless but a little unsure why. It may be because they feel they’ve witnessed the cruel depths to which humanity can sink or the beautiful complexity of the tattoos or simply, her photographic skill.

The celebrated Spanish artist has documented everything from bull fighting to flamenco and has now turned her lens toward the Mara Salvatrucha, one of the most established, dangerous and rapidly growing gangs in the world. As if the project doesn’t sound scary enough, Muñoz took all of the photos in prisons… in El Salvador.

The exhibit of sixty large-scale portraits that bring the viewer face to face with the gang members themselves - many of them tattooed from head to toe.

Muñoz has also included information about the country’s history, as well as photographs of the prisoners with their mothers, wives, girlfriends and children saying she wants to expose “the social calamity that has destroyed the youth of Central America.”

Far from being a distant social issue, the Mara Salvatrucha have spread across North America and have even entered Europe. This makes Muñoz’s art thought-provoking on many levels.

The French magazine, PHOTO, recently highlighted Muñoz’s Mara project as their cover story in the above Fall 2007 issue.

For more insight into the work of Isabel Muñoz, please read this article from Lens Culture. On the very bottom of that page is an audio link where she describes her working process.

Info & Images: 20 Minutos & Lens Culture

Tags: Amanda Lopez, art, beauty, culture, El Salvador, gang, Isabel Muñoz, Lens, life, magazine, Mara, Nina Parks, PHOTO, photography, Salvatrucha, tattoos

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 6:20 am and is filed under art, interview, news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.