The Portuguese artist discusses the inspiration behind his tranquil imagery, which sheds light on our inner lives, away from the fast pace of a tech-driven world.
Imagine what it feels like to break away from a glacier, drift away on the current and become a lonely form gazing into the deep blue ocean. That feeling is part of the inspiration behind Icebergs, the photographic series created by Portuguese photographer Nuno Serrão, which will be on tour in Italy, France and Greece throughout the autumn.
A response to a connected world that’s busy, frenetic and often needy, Nuno’s imagery invites us to travel in a different direction. It hints at our inward journeys, our solitary experiences not shaped by others or how we are perceived.
“Everything started from a dialogue within, an attempt to understand myself. Then I realised I wasn’t alone, that others felt the same, and that our behaviour towards life, and how others see us, was a reflection of a choice we made early on when we didn’t fit the norm,” explains Nuno.
That feeling is captured in Nuno’s photography of people he’s come across, who could also be icebergs. Young and old, various ethnicities, different genders – some of his subjects look melancholy or lonely, others might seem confident or strong. How you see them might even be a reflection of your own inner journey.
Nuno continues: “To break away from the glacier. To drift into the open sea, trading comfort and convention for the chance to find answers we can’t find in others. Even if that means spending a lifetime staring into the deep blue.”
The artworks are beautiful in unconventional ways, but each does come with a sense of quiet serenity. “We live in the age of multi-tabs, binge-watching, and immediatism,” says Nuno. “We have instant coffee, expressways and speedy boarding. All of these are just one long distraction to avoid the questions that can arise from the discomfort of boredom. A fast life is a numb life, and with all this speed, we no longer have the time to understand what we are slowly losing along the way.”
Festivals and galleries across southern Europe have picked up on Nuno’s talent and what his Icebergs series has to say. From 28 August, a selection of the photographs will be part of a group show at the Ragusa Foto Festival in Sicily, then it’s on to Grenze in Verona for a solo show beginning on 19 September.
The Verona exhibition is being curated by Simone Azzoni, who is mounting the images on sheets of plexiglass. Each will float in the space to augment the idea that each iceberg is adrift, lonely, fragile, and lost in time. The viewer, too, will float through it, like a castaway, observing and tapping into the unconscious feelings Nuno has captured.
From 25 September, Icebergs will hit La Petite Photo Gallery in Toulouse for another solo show, and simultaneously, photos from the collection will appear in a collective exhibition at Photometria in Loannina, Greece, starting 27 September.
Based between Madeira and Lisbon, Nuno runs a marketing agency by day, but away from work, he is a self-taught artist using photography, video and writing to explore what he calls “the emergent side effects of thinking.”
Icebergs is an ongoing project; Nuno has no idea when it will conclude, but when the time comes, he plans to publish the photography in a book. He shoots with an analogue medium format camera, which is a naturally slower process, in tune with the spirit of the series. “I dedicate this series to Alberto, my grandfather, the original iceberg,” says Nuno.
“As Leonard Cohen said, the cracks are where the light comes in, but it also works the other way round. I see the light breaching out,” he concludes.
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