Nocturnes

• Photographer
  Betina Samaia

As a psychologist, I’m interested in exploring the unconscious with my camera. My work mixes night photos with light painting. I like to photograph places that normally do not lend themselves to photographs, full of mystery, pregnant of possibilities. Night is the perfect metaphor for art – there lies my fascination with it. Art is the biggest mystery. The more we know about it the less we know. By lightening details of night’s vastness I am trying to expose its secrets. Night is ambiguous, unfathomable. But it also reveals the infinite, the shadows, the stars and the far away lights of town. When your eyes get accustomed to darkness it vanishes revealing night’s simplicity – and impossible complexity. By revealing night’s delicate silence, the fog hiding the dormant secrets of the unconscious dissipates into a breath of light.

Betina Samaia (b. 1964) is a Brazilian photographer, with a degree in Psychology. Through her work, she is interested in exploring the unconscious. She has been influenced by Surrealism and Impressionist painters: subtle lines and contours, strong colors, images that go beyond what we see – combining reality and imagination. She’s the author of four photobooks and has had exhibits in the U.S., France and Brazil. She is represented by Arte 57 Gallery in São Paulo.