Kathleen Meier

"Here I capture an uncomfortable atmosphere, charged with strangeness, with a duality between beauty and deterioration."

Today we talk to Kathleen Meier, photographer from Metz, France. In her work, Kathleen explores the intricate balance between space and light to create haunting atmospheres and provoke questioning within her audience. We catch a glimpse of her unfinished "Work in Progress" collection and hear about her exploration of the mind with her exquisite photography.

Hi Kathleen! Tell us about yourself Hi Ballad of! I am a french photographer living in Metz (France). I am 22 and have graduated with the European Bachelor of Fine Arts Professional Photography at the Ecole of Condé (Nancy, France).

When did discover your love for photography? What do you shoot with? Actually, I don’t really know when I discovered my love for photography. I always was very creative, with different mediums, but it was a game for me, even photography. However, I remember reading an article about Nan Golding in Vogue France and I totally fell in love with her work. This is the first photographer who use this medium for an artistic work that I knew of. I immediately wanted to know everything about photography, so I joined an art school in the photographic section. Now, I can’t imagine doing something else. I shoot with a Nikon D600 and a 50mm, most of the time with no tripod, even at night.

Tell us about your 'work in progress' work? As the provisional title said, this is still a work in progress. There will be more photos. But I can tell you that this series is like a metaphor about mental illness. At first, we notice a certain beauty of this place, but when we look at the photos more profoundly, you will find that you are stuck in the photos, in this particular house. This is like there is no escape and we are condemn to go in circles. It creates in us a madness feeling, we are uncomfortable. Then if you look at the details you will see cracks, dirt, deterioration and understand that something is wrong. This allows me to do the parallel with the broken brain of mentally ill persons who are stuck in their on world. I question the moment where a sane person become ill, and what happens in their brain.

Space and mood are very important in these images, what atmosphere did you aim to capture? I do put a great importance with space and mood in my photographs. Not just for this series but for my whole work in general. I always try to question the viewer and to give him a full part to play. It’s culture, experiences and feels construct my photos, we are all different so everyone as it’s own interpretation. There are just signs to lead us in a certain direction. Here I capture an uncomfortable atmosphere, charged with strangeness, with a duality between beauty and deterioration.

Our next issue is the muse issue, describe your perfect muse? My perfect muse is the night and it’s atmosphere. I am totally in love of it’s beauty, colors, solitude and myriad forms it can take. I never bored about night. It could be peaceful, hectic, dangerous, worrying. When the day represent work, routine, obligation, the night represent freedom. At night we can be who you want to be and spent your time of what you want. It is thoughtful, a perfect state to create. My work in progress is not at night, but I kind of found the same atmosphere in the manor where I shot these photographs. This was thoughtful, worrying and at the same time, peaceful. I think I really need this atmosphere to shoot.

Any exciting projects coming up? Yes! I have my very first book edited at ARP2 Publishing which will be released the June 1st. I am very excited about it, this is a real chance to have my own book at 22 ! And obviously I'll work at finishing this series to present it for photographic contests, galleries, and maybe work with it on a second book.

To see more of Kathleen's work go check out her Website and Instagram, you can also watch a short clip about her new book here.