Underwater Beauties: Gabriele Viertel Featured in Graphis Journal #371

The renaissance is reinvented in our upcoming Graphis Journal #371 (available for preorder), with Gabriele Viertel‘s photography transporting us back in time with female divinity and aestheticized anatomy. 

Originally from Germany, Viertel studied mechanical engineering while simultaneously pursuing a modeling career to fund her studies. After graduating, she decided to fully commit herself to the fashion industry, and worked for some of the world’s top designers like Dior, Wolfgang Joop, and Karl Lagerfeld. Viertel’s runway career was bountiful, but in 2011, she opted to pursue a photography career, and began her journey as a freelance artist. What followed was accomplishments such as her work being featured in Vogue Italia and on the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s blog to numerous awards, including the Gold medal for the Color Awards, the Silver medal for the Prix de la Photographie Paris, and the Platinum award for the Graphis Awards. 

Big Art Theory’s art writer and collector, Anna H. Lucy, describes Viertel’s photography as one that “makes you stop and stare. It moves you, inviting you to visit a different space where there’s no time and where a perfect female beauty approaches you – the movements remind you of an elegant dance.” 

Here’s a sneak peak of our interview with the illustrious photographer:

What attracts you to underwater photography?

“To explain that, I wrote a poem: Water is the silent room / Where time is floating / Clocked by the resting breath / A sprawling cocoon / Where I am with me / Watch in astonishment / As you are with you / Gently surrounded / Borrowed ease / Of the netherworld.” 

What advice would you have for students starting out today?

“Be courageous and self-critical, seek your own means of expression, and use the pain you have experienced. Don’t put the question of the saleability of your work in the foreground.” 

What do you value most?

“The power of hope.”

To preorder Graphis Journal #371, visit graphis.com for more information.

Author: Graphis

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