Siren     Gundega Dege

Gundega Dege was born in Latvia in 1971, in the small town of Ogre. She went to art school and participated in several young painters’ competitions, and also received her BA in English philology from a university in the capital city of Riga, where she studied foreign languages but also continued to do drawings and write poetry. She works in public relations and photojournalism. She studied photography at home by reading books and photo magazines, and by participating in photography websites and workshops. In the spring of year 2005, her first photo exhibition opened in her native town (together with her husband Andreij Vahrushew who also is photographer). By the end of that year she had won a few local and international photo contests and had three showings of her work, one of which was in the expronto one day exhibition in Riga. Interested in human relationships and emotions, she likes to focus on portraits, and her favorite models are her son and daughter. She says, “My heroes are people around me, I very often photograph my 2 children, I (get) inspiration from my everyday, from events around, from music I listen (to), just sometimes from my emotions -- how I feel or how other people feel around me,” and “Once I took photos about what I saw; now I take photos about what I feel.” Also influenced by Jan Saudek, she also tries to capture the sad or darker sides of the human experience, and to look deeper and show different sides of people and life. People often tell her that her photographs are like old painted pictures, and she says that she uses “specific ways of post processing in PhotoShop of my works - that is (I) work with several layers, because I very often use several photos in one, as well as I use brushes and different textures, sometimes I don’t know what will be the result, I am in the process, and after several hours of work I got the aim - the final photo. But it also happens, I just make a shot and I see this is final, I don’t need any post processing, except maybe making contrast and BW.” For more information about her art, visit Gundega’s website at www.sundewart.com.