BIOGRAPHY

Inta Nahapetjan (Yerevan, Armenia, 1988) is an Amsterdam based photographer. After completing her study in Museology at the Reinwardt Academy in Amsterdam, Nahapetjan turned to photography, and graduated Cum Laude from the Amsterdam Photo Academy in 2016. Ever since, her career as a photographer has ran its course and her work gained national and international attention through exhibitions such as her recent solo show at Galerie Claude Samuel, Paris, 2018; her solo show at The Amsterdam Picture Room, 2018; and between others her group show at New Dutch Photography Talent, GUP Galley, 2016. Her works has also been published in significant magazines such as Dans Magazine (2017) NRC magazine (2018) and her work “Papillon” has been chosen as the cover image for New Photo – Dutch Photography Talent in 2017. The working method of Nahapetjan entails full control over the whole creation process of a picture, from the selection of the model to the styling, the art direction and the ultimate shot: for this reason, Nahapetjan’s work is also suitable for commission.

Influenced by the artistic climate she grew up in, Nahapetjan’s work is centered around the concept of the extreme, in all its different facets and gradations. Fascinated by the peculiar lifestyle of artful characters, Nahapetjan attempts to capture the essence of the creative intensity common to all her models. Following them closely for a period of time, Nahapetjan manages to fixate a moment of their lives in which this intensity is concentrated: the result is a mixture of lust, beauty and darkness, which engage the viewer while at the same time retaining a certain mystery. The red thread throughout Nahapetjan’s work is constituted by the search towards the core of this extreme, and all her pictures reflect the impossibility of fully pinning down this border line between elegance, attraction and inexplicable sorrow. From her Ballet series and Vulgar Elegance to her series of portraits, the body of work by Inta Nahapetjan contains the restlessness of the ultimate quest: the one towards the understanding of beauty.

Photo by Harm van de Poel