Introducing Photographer of the Week #208: Elena Helfrecht.

Elena’s work revolves around the inner space and the phenomena of consciousness, emerging from an autobiographical context and opening up to the surreal and fantastic, at times grotesque. Interweaving memories, experiences, and imagination, she creates inextricable narratives with multiple layers of meaning characterized by a visceral iconography. Via the artist:

“I love photography as a medium because it can open a visual dimension between the real and the imagined. The image is always a hybrid between the photographer’s subjective perception and our shared reality, and can never be fully assigned to one or the other, thus offering a new encounter and space for communication. In the last years, I have noticed how I am continuously pulled back towards the area I grew up in, and how my practice primarily revolves around the notion of home with its various meanings and implications. Related to this, I mainly explore consciousness and its phenomena within my work, how we are influenced, and how we come into existence.”

Elena Helfrecht (b. 1992 in Bavaria; based in London and Bavaria) is a visual artist working with photography. In 2019 she completed her MA in Photography at the Royal College of Art in London, after receiving her BA in Art History and Book Science from Friedrich-Alexander-University in Erlangen in 2015 and studying Art and Image History at Humboldt-University in Berlin from 2016 to 2017.

For more information on Elena’s work visit her website.