Strauss Louw

(b 1992, South Africa. Lives and works in Stellenbosch)

The male figure is a prominent subject in Louw's photography; which stems from his interest in human relationships and the environments in which desire plays out. Central to his work is experimentation with photographic processes; namely the 19th century salt print process and silver gelatin print. He regularly combines glass; cloth and imitation gold leaf with these processes to reconfigure the original image. “I like to say that I am a languid photographer;” says Louw. “What I mean to express is that I don't actively seek to photograph; but have adopted a languorous photographic methodology; a perpetual process of photographing on the fly; so to speak. Through this process I build an archive of images captured in response to my experiences.”