MCGILL SPF10/11 RESEARCH: Artist: Natascha Libbert

Natascha Libbert is a vision of who I want to be in a few years. I am shocked at how similar we are. She deals with ideas of isolation and what humans to do cope with the feeling of separation from the world they live in. She also worked as a flight attendant in order to save money to go back to grad school for photography... which is where she developed and observed the concepts she works with today. Her visual style is also appealing to me. Her compositions aren't over worked, and her color palate and lighting scenarios she typically documents give a welcomed feeling of solitude, mystery, and excitement.

Bio (from her website):
Natascha Libbert (1973) lives and works in The Hague, Holland. After working for several years as an account manager at an ad agency (FHV/BBDO), she decided to become a part-time flight attendant in order to go back to school. She studied photography at the Royal Academy of Arts (KABK) and graduated there in June 2009.

"Photography gives purpose to questions I have. If I would not photograph, I would have to study something like sociology. Or something else to answer questions.
Something which explains how the arrangements and codes we consider normal, came to be that way."

-Natascha Libbert, on what photography means to her (from interview with ILOVETHATPHOTO http://www.ilovethatphoto.net/2010/02/21/interview-natascha-libbert/)

"This is a story about man's attempt to model his surroundings to become that which he envisions as being an ideal world. It is about how a created world has become reality. I perceived this to be especially visible in places such as hotels, airports, lounges, avenues, resorts by the sea. These places seem to present man with a truth which may be difficult to live up to. Details, both subtle and paramount, can be read in the understandable attempt of man to maintain his created decor and himself in it. In the end, what remains is the undercurrent of a man's alienated relationship to the world he created, a feeling of estrangement. This is what I observe as I travel. It is what this story is about."

-Natascha Libbert, statement on her series "Take Me to the Hilton" from her website.