The schism between black-and-white photography and sculpture is challenged in the work of Anna Agoston, who creates wall installations of black-and-white macro photographs of plant forms in order to elevate free, humble, ephemeral, and readily available natural elements of the environment to the status of art, while demonstrating a certain interdependency and materializing a belonging to the world.

Agoston began her art project in the spring of 2013, at a time when she was asking herself essential questions such as Who am I? What is my purpose? Where do I come from? Where do I belong? Underlying these questions was the fact that she was living and working in a country of which she is a citizen, but to which she did not particularly feel she belonged. This recurring phenomenon in her life can be explained by the fact that she is a Third Culture Kid (TCK)* with TCK parents.

As she asked herself these questions and spent time in nature constructing her master series of forms, she began to realize that not only did her images reflect the intimate nature of her relationship with plants, but that they also brought out aspects of herself that she was not aware of. Over time, she came to understand that these photographs were a testament to her ecological identity** - an identity that she developed by default, as she found it difficult to identify with a culture in particular.

As with a language, she shapes and expresses her ecological identity - behaviors, attitudes, values and beliefs - in her installations by associating "strings" of photographs of plant forms to abstract concepts such as "love", "tranquility" and "eternity". The connections between the two are reinforced by the use of form - form being an aspect of reality that, when put into context, can metaphorically embody the mental and physical experiences that constitute existence.

The photographs in the series that comprise her installations are characterized by tightly framed portraits of precisely positioned forms; they are often anthropomorphic. Furthermore, while the forms are strategically illuminated and revealed through a wide range of tones, they offer viewers specific areas of sharpness on which to focus their attention. The control of all aspects of the image allows for a metaphorical communication of a sense of existence in the world - states of mind and types of relationships. 

Underlying this body of work is an innovative artistic process that depends on a contemporary device exclusive to digital cameras - the liquid crystal display (LCD). This device allows Agoston to "direct carve"***, using flash light, forms from their natural environment and to make sharp, precisely exposed macro photographs of plant forms in nature - in botanical gardens and in the wild. The progressive process (one photograph may require up to fifty exposures) allows her to gradually become aware of the form, what it evokes in her and what she can express with it.

On April 22, 2023, Anna Agoston opened her Brussels studio (where she prints her photographs, makes the frames for her installations and exhibits her work) to the general public. She is currently looking for opportunities for a first solo exhibition (museum, cultural center or gallery). She also hopes to do an artist residency at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK.

She believes her work carries a relevant message for our times:

Art that unites by instilling a deeper connection with nature.

* The term Third Culture Kid was coined in the 1950s by American sociologists and anthropologists John and Ruth Useem to refer to a person who spent the formative years of his or her life in a country or culture other than that of his or her parents.

** Mitchell Thomashow first used the term “ecological identity” in his book, Ecological Identity: Becoming a Reflective Environmentalist (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1996) to refer to the way people construe themselves in relationship to the earth. It is similar to other collective identities (e.g., gender, ethnic identity, national identity) in that it offers a sense of connection and belonging to a group.

*** The term “direct carving” refers to a process that was used by Constantin Brancusi, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. According to the Tate Website, it is “an approach to making carved sculpture where the actual process of carving suggests the final form rather than a carefully worked out preliminary model.”