The 7th Chelsea International Photography Competition

The 7th Chelsea International Photography Competition

February 19 – February 25, 2026

Reception: Thursday, February 19, 6-8 PM 530 West 25th Street, New York, NY

Agora Gallery presents the 7th Chelsea International Photography Competition, opening February 19, 2026, in the heart of New York’s Chelsea art district.

The exhibition brings together a group of photographers whose work reflects the energy, depth, and creative range of today’s photographic practice.

Selected from an international pool of applicants by a distinguished jury that includes Michelle Bogre, educator, documentary photographer, author, and copyright lawyer; Andrew VanWickler, Senior Solutions Consultant at Adobe and former visual leader at ABC News; and Devin Allen, award-winning photographer and photojournalist known for his community-driven and socially engaged work, the participating artists represent a wide spectrum of voices and perspectives.

Their work comes together in a cohesive presentation that highlights photography as both a personal language and a powerful form of contemporary expression.

Professional

Ann Brandeis

Anne Calamuci

Kadija Corinaldi

Doron Gild

Kathryn Huang

Andrea Moreland

Florian W. Mueller

John Pfisterer

James Pryor

Jon Wollenhaupt

Joshua YeheNara

Ramona Zordini

Michele Zousmer

Amateur

Paola Francesca Barone

Charles Chao Wang

Shannon Charvat

Sophie Cool

Han Jiang

Magdalena Konwinska

Carlos Mendoza

Claudia Oliveri

Jennifer Parsad

Marco Parenti

Rik Roos

Natali Vorontsoff

Jason Ward

Yi Han & Yaorong Lu

Ann Brandeis

Ann Brandeis is a fine art photographer who centers her practice on time, memory, and perception.

She holds an MFA in Photography from Pratt Institute, with a specialization in the History of Photography, a foundation that strongly informs her conceptual approach.

Brandeis creates image-based narratives that reflect on the passage of time and the way personal memories surface through small triggers such as a color, a scent, or a fleeting visual detail.

Her work invites viewers to slow down and reflect, offering images that feel both intimate and universal. Rather than documenting specific moments, Brandeis builds emotional landscapes that echo lived experience and the quiet complexity of human memory.

Her series The Landscape of Memory was featured in FotoNostrum Publishing’s collection The World of Photography. Brandeis’s work has been exhibited internationally and featured in publications including Fine Arts Magazine, Art Hub East Hampton, and Graphis Magazine. She has also received recognition and awards from organizations such as IPA, PX3, Lucie, and FotoNostrum.

Do We Know Each Other, 2019 Mixed media printed on japanese kozo paper 22” x 28”

Between the Walls, 2017

Mixed media printed on japanese kozo paper 28” x 22”

Anne Calamuci

Anne Calamuci is a conceptual portrait photographer whose work centers on women, identity, and the evolving female experience.

Based in Maryland, Calamuci studied photography at the Corcoran School of Art and later at The Portfolio Center in Atlanta, developing a practice that blends careful planning with intuitive image-making.

Calamuci’s portraits often explore emotion, aging, memory, and beauty, with a growing focus on light painting techniques that add movement, energy, and atmosphere to her work.

Her images are guided by themes rather than fixed narratives, allowing space for viewers to bring their own experiences into the interpretation.

Her work has been exhibited at Zenith Gallery, ArtSpiration Gallery, the NIH, The McLean Project for the Arts, and The Maryland Women’s Heritage Center, and her series Ageless Creativity was featured on CBS News.

Currently touring from 2024 to 2026, Ageless Creativity highlights female artists ages 55 to 89, challenging assumptions about aging and celebrating women who continue to live creatively, boldly, and with purpose.

Chasing Beauty, 2025

Photograph on fine art paper

Beauty, 2025

on fine art paper

Kadija Corinaldi

Kadija Corinaldi is an American photographer whose practice centers on visual storytelling shaped by emotion, symbolism, and inner experience. Self-taught, Corinaldi’s relationship with photography began during her undergraduate studies at Virginia Wesleyan University, where an elective course sparked a lasting engagement with the medium and the development of her independent artistic voice.

Corinaldi’s work has been exhibited nationally, with presentations in California, New York, Florida, North Carolina, and Maryland, and has appeared in publications including Mob Journal and StyleCruze.

Her recent exhibitions include the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art’s Made in VA, Monad’s Format exhibition in Brooklyn, and the Black Voices exhibition at the historic Crispus Attucks Theatre in Norfolk.

Corinaldi will also be featured in Monad’s upcoming Her Story exhibition in celebration of Black History Month.

Drawing from dreams, mythology, and spiritual symbolism, Corinaldi creates images that occupy liminal space between the subconscious and the physical world. Through intentional use of color, light, and carefully chosen props, Corinaldi transforms internal visions into contemplative, evocative photographic narratives.

Doron Gild

Doron Gild is a New York–based luxury portrait photographer whose work is defined by quiet intensity, cinematic vision, and meticulous craftsmanship.

With more than two decades of experience, Gild has developed a refined practice that moves seamlessly between fine art, commissioned projects, and commercial photography, while maintaining a deeply personal artistic voice.

Gild’s creative process begins long before the camera is raised. Each portrait is carefully imagined, sketched, and constructed, resulting in images where nothing is left to chance.

Guided by a rich, deliberate use of color and a strong narrative sensibility, Gild creates portraits that feel both intimate and composed.

At the core of Gild’s work is a profound curiosity about people. Whether photographing cultural figures, families, or individuals, Gild approaches every subject with equal respect and attentiveness.

His portraits invite viewers into moments that feel almost dreamlike, as if quietly crossing into a private emotional space.

Never static or ornamental, the subjects in Gild’s images carry presence and emotional gravity, offering portraits that linger well beyond the first glance.

Archival ink jet prints 30” x 40”

The Rumbles_Peace & Quiet

Archival ink jet prints

Shippees - Manet A Archival ink jet prints

Archival pigment print

Kathryn Huang, also known as Kat Huang, is a photographic artist born in Thailand and currently based in New York. Growing up between cultures has shaped how Huang sees the world and continues to influence her visual language.

She was introduced to photography at a young age through family archives, learning early on how images can hold memory, emotion, and connection.

Huang works primarily with film photography and is drawn to landscapes, movement, and the relationship between the human body and its surroundings. Dance and fashion play a central role in her practice, allowing her to explore expression, vulnerability, and identity through form and gesture. Her images often feel dreamlike, balancing intimacy with a sense of openness and atmosphere.

Her work has been exhibited in shows such as Bodies in Motion at CultureLab Long Island City and recognized by the Booooooom Photo Awards.

Alongside her artistic practice, Huang also works in fashion and visual media, bringing a refined sense of storytelling to both personal and commercial projects.

Spades Divine, 2025

C-type photographic print 16” x 20”

Heaven Awaits, 2025

C-type photographic print

Pressure, 2025 C-type photographic print 16” x 20”

Purgatory, 2025

C-type photographic print 16” x 20”

Andrea Moreland

Andrea Moreland is an artist and educator whose work connects creative practice with teaching and community building. With over twenty years of experience in both K–12 and college education, Moreland approaches art as a powerful tool for learning, reflection, and personal growth.

Her artistic practice focuses on conceptual portraiture and staged photography. Through carefully composed images, Moreland explores identity, inner worlds, and moments of change.

Influenced by myth, art history, and everyday experience, her portraits often show figures in quiet transition, suggesting the space between who we are and who we are becoming.

Moreland’s work has been recognized for its clarity and thoughtful approach. Alongside her studio practice, she continues to lead educational programs and mentor students and fellow educators.

Part III, 2025 Photograph on fine art paper

Working at the intersection of conceptual clarity and visual restraint, Florian W. Mueller has developed a photographic practice that favors stillness, precision, and sustained contemplation.

His early introduction to photography sparked a lifelong engagement with the medium, later shaped through professional experience in journalism, still photography, and set work before evolving into an independent artistic voice.

Mueller is internationally awarded and exhibited, with a career that spans both commercial and fine art contexts.

He is a Professional Member of Germany’s BFF (Berufsverband freiberuflicher Fotografen und Filmgestalter e.V.), where Mueller served on the national board from 2020 to 2022, and holds memberships with the DGPh and the Association of Photographers in London.

Alongside his practice, Mueller lectures on photography and leads workshops and masterclasses.

In his EQUILIBRIUM series, Mueller turns his attention to extinct and critically endangered animals, presenting them not as documentary subjects but as quiet, suspended presences.

Through controlled lighting, reduced color palettes, and deliberate composition, Mueller creates images that resist spectacle and instead invite reflection on balance, loss, and humanity’s role in shaping the natural world.

Ikarus 04, 2021

Printed on alumium (chromaluxe)

John Pfisterer

John Pfisterer is a photographer whose work bridges technical mastery and fine-art experimentation. Based on Long Island, Pfisterer brings his background as a professional engineer into his photographic practice, applying a deep understanding of lighting and optics to both studio and underwater environments.

Pfisterer’s recent work explores Cubist principles within fine-art photography, using fragmented perspectives, layered planes, and carefully structured compositions to reimagine the human form. Whether working underwater or on land, Pfisterer treats light as both a technical tool and an expressive element, shaping images that feel dynamic and architectural.

His work has been recognized by the Underwater Photographer of the Year competitions in 2024 and 2025 and exhibited at the Bay Area Friends of Fine Arts gallery.

Influenced by modernist movements and 19th-century painters, Pfisterer continues to investigate the space where fashion, abstraction, and fine art intersect, challenging viewers to see both the figure and its surrounding environment in new and unexpected ways.

Cubism Study In Blue And Ultraviolet 2,, 2025

Cubism Study In Blue And Ultraviolet 3, 2025

Mermaid Study 3, 2025

Underwater Study 3, 2025

Photograph on hahnemühle paper

Waterlight Study 1, 2025

Photograph on hahnemühle paper

Waterlight Study 2, 2025

Photograph on hahnemühle paper

Jon Wollenhaupt

Jon Wollenhaupt’s practice moves fluidly between photography, printmaking, and writing, bringing a layered and reflective approach to image-making.

His work has been exhibited and published across the United States and internationally, establishing a career rooted in both visual experimentation and conceptual inquiry.

Based in Sacramento, Wollenhaupt holds a fine art degree from Grossmont College and completed additional studio art studies at San Francisco State University.

Wollenhaupt’s recent series, Apparitions, examines the moment when something hidden becomes visible. Drawing from art history, psychology, and myth, the work presents apparitions not as supernatural events, but as visual manifestations of memory, inner states, and distorted perception.

By presenting images as triptychs and quadriptychs, Wollenhaupt disrupts linear reading and challenges familiar ways of seeing.

The fragmented format mirrors the way memories surface—uncertain, layered, and incomplete—inviting viewers to question reality, consciousness, and the personal and cultural narratives that shape how we understand what we see.

Moment’s Notice, 2025

When Coming And Going, 2025

Joshua YeheNara

Joshua YeheNara, known as Wet Plate Colonel, is an American photographer based in Cheshire, Connecticut, working with traditional, fully analog photographic processes.

Self-taught and deeply hands-on, YeheNara specializes in wet plate collodion and black-andwhite film photography, approaching the medium with patience, precision, and respect for craft.

In addition to creating images, YeheNara restores and builds antique wooden cameras, treating photography as both a physical and thoughtful practice.

His debut series, Zen – Inner Peace, was produced without any digital tools. Instead, YeheNara relies on custom-made equipment, careful lighting, and in-camera techniques to create images that appear calm, balanced, and suspended in time.

For YeheNara, Zen is not a belief system but a way of seeing the world.

Through minimal compositions and quiet visual moments, YeheNara’s work invites viewers to slow down, reflect, and reconnect with a sense of inner balance and stillness.

Ramona Zordini

Ramona Zordini is an Italian photographer and visual artist whose work confronts identity, transformation, and emotional inheritance with striking intimacy.

Based in Brescia, Zordini challenges the limits of photography by breaking its twodimensional surface, combining photographic imagery with sewing, piercing, drawing, and layered cyanotypes.

Zordini’s work has been exhibited at major institutions, including Museo S. Giulia in Brescia, Museo degli Eremitani in Padua, and MACS Museum in Catania, and featured in international publications such as Hi-Fructose, ZOOM Magazine, and Analog Forever.

Her images have also appeared on book covers and film posters. Zordini has received significant recognition, including First Place in Experimental at the Fine Art Photography Awards and honors at the Experimental Photo Festival in Barcelona.

Rooted in personal history and psychological inquiry, Zordini’s practice embraces fragmentation, chance, and change.

Through tactile intervention and layered imagery, Zordini transforms photography into a physical, evolving space where memory, time, and selfhood are continuously reassembled.

Michele Zousmer

Michele Zousmer is an American humanitarian photographer whose work focuses on people and communities often overlooked by social, economic, and cultural systems. Working in long-form projects, Zousmer builds sustained relationships with her subjects, allowing trust, presence, and depth to shape her images.

Her photography is grounded in clarity rather than spectacle. Zousmer avoids dramatization, choosing instead to document lived realities with empathy, restraint, and respect.

She is particularly drawn to how responsibility, resilience, and caregiving are absorbed into the lives of women and girls, often without recognition or support.

Zousmer’s recent projects examine Irish Traveller women and girls, young girls laboring in Costa Rica’s coffee fields while caring for siblings, and aging women living alone in Balkan communities.

In parallel, she is developing a portrait and narrative series highlighting black professionals in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics.

Summer Time

Paola Francesca Barone creates photography that feels like a visual diary, blending emotion, memory, and imagination into each image.

Based in Naples and trained in Classical Studies, she brings a thoughtful, humanistic approach to her work, exploring self-portraiture, conceptual narratives, and minimalism with a poetic sensibility. Her photographs often dwell in quiet, intimate spaces, revealing the inner lives of her subjects while inviting viewers to engage with the emotions beneath the surface.

Barone experiments with light, composition, and artisanal printing techniques, often pairing her images with words to deepen their impact.

Her recent projects, including Lontano da me, Icara o dell’oblio, and La musa del Natale, have been exhibited widely in Italy and abroad, earning recognition in awards such as the Tokyo Photo Awards, Monovisions, and International Color Awards.

La Decostruzione del Visibile Photograph on fine art paper

Charles Chao Wang is a London- and Shanghai-based photographer and art educator whose work blends thoughtful social insight with quiet emotional depth.

A graduate of the University of the Arts London, he draws inspiration from his own experiences, as well as from sociology, philosophy, and psychology, to explore themes of social inequality, power, and human vulnerability.

Rooted in Zen philosophy, Wang’s photography often brings nature and human presence into balance. His images use stillness, simplicity, and visual harmony to encourage reflection, offering both a gentle social critique and a space for inner calm.

Wang’s work has received significant international recognition, including Gold Awards from the Tokyo International Photo Awards and the European Photography Awards, along with honors from the International Photography Awards.

His photographs have been exhibited worldwide and published in respected visual art journals, marking him as a distinctive and thoughtful voice in contemporary photography.

Away Way 3

Photograph on fine art paper

Shannon Charvat

Shannon Charvat is a New Jersey-based photographer and graphic designer working across visual communication and fine art.

She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Communication Design from Ramapo College of New Jersey in 2023 and continues to develop a practice shaped by both design structure and photographic experimentation.

Charvat’s photography has received international recognition, including two Honorable Mentions in the 2025 Monochrome Awards for Fashion/Beauty and Portrait categories.

In 2025, her work Blood Red was exhibited at the Decode Gallery Square XIX Photography Exhibition in Tucson, Arizona. Alongside her photographic work, Charvat has earned multiple design awards, including GDUSA’s American Digital Design Award and American Graphic Design Award, as well as a Design Masterprize award for her conceptual magazine Mirage.

Working professionally as a graphic designer in the pharmaceutical field, Charvat brings precision, visual clarity, and strong composition into her photographic work.

Her practice moves fluidly between design and image-making, creating work that is both thoughtful and visually refined.

Photograph on fine art paper

Sophie Cool is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily in photography, known for examining social norms, identity, and the way bodies are shaped by expectation.

Trained as a midwife, Cool brings a rare intimacy and honesty to her work, informed by years of close contact with the human body in moments of vulnerability, strength, and transition.

In addition to her medical practice as a midwife, Cool studied audiovisual production and image techniques, building a practice that balances technical skill with strong conceptual intent.

Her photographic work centers on portraiture and self-portraiture, using everyday gestures and familiar objects to question ideas of gender roles, family structures, and social pressure. Domestic spaces often become quiet stages where resistance and freedom take form.

Cool’s projects have been widely exhibited and awarded internationally, including multiple wins from PHOTO Magazine and recognition from the REFOCUS Awards, Chromatic Awards, and KLPA Portrait.

Through bold color, careful staging, and emotional clarity, her work invites viewers to reconsider the body as a site of autonomy, expression, and change.

Han Jiang works in fine art photography and visual storytelling, building images that reflect on memory, identity, and emotional presence.

Born in China and now based in the United States, her practice moves between conceptual portraiture and narrative photography, focusing on moments that feel quiet yet emotionally charged.

Jiang’s photographs often explore the tension between vulnerability and resilience. Drawing from personal experience, she creates scenes that balance cinematic atmosphere with psychological intimacy. Rather than direct storytelling, her images invite slow looking, allowing meaning to surface through gesture, light, and mood.

Her work has been exhibited internationally and recognized by platforms such as the Chelsea International Photography Competition, the New York Photography Awards, Gallery NAT London, and SE Center for Photography, along with juried exhibitions across the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Jiang approaches photography as both observation and reconstruction, using the medium to give form to experiences that are often unseen or unspoken, and offering viewers space to reflect on their own inner narratives.

Her Heart Remembered What The World Forgot Archival pigment print

Magdalena Koniwinska

Magdalena Konwińska approaches photography as a personal and intuitive practice shaped by long walks through the rural landscapes of Podlasie, where abandoned houses sit quietly among fields and forests.

Living close to these places, Konwińska began photographing them out of inner necessity rather than artistic ambition, allowing the images to become a form of reflection and selfhealing.

Konwińska is drawn to interiors marked by time: peeling walls, worn objects, and soft traces of light. These spaces are never empty in her view, but hold the presence and memory of the people who once lived there.

She enters them as a witness, with care and respect.

The human body appears in Konwińska’s work as a gentle contrast to decay, symbolizing vulnerability, continuity, and the passage of time.

Natural light plays a central role, slowly revealing details that might otherwise remain unseen.

Through her photographs, Konwińska reflects on impermanence and memory, finding quiet beauty in what is fragile, overlooked, and disappearing.

3

Photograph on fine art paper

Carlos Mendoza

Carlos Mendoza is a visual artist and photographer known for creating richly symbolic and carefully constructed images.

Born in Italy and working under his professional name, Mendoza brings together fine art training, photography, and forensic graphology to shape a practice grounded in precision, meaning, and visual storytelling.

His work has been presented internationally, including solo exhibitions in London at the Albemarle Gallery, where he showed The Surreal Theatre of Dreams and Different Angle.

Mendoza received the Photography Prize at the Lynx International Prize of Contemporary Art in Slovenia and was selected for the official collateral events of the 2017 Venice Biennale, Anima Mundi and Consciousness. His work has also appeared in group exhibitions across Italy and Europe.

Mendoza creates images as visual allegories built through physical sets and handcrafted objects rather than digital manipulation.

Taking inspiration from Renaissance symbolism, alchemical imagery, and Surrealism, his photographs invite viewers into dreamlike spaces where meaning unfolds through careful observation and layered visual language.

Claudia Oliveri is a fine art photographer whose work reflects a life shaped by movement, curiosity, and close observation.

Raised across Latin America, Europe, and the United States due to her father’s diplomatic career, she developed an early sensitivity to place, culture, and the natural world.

Photography became her first creative language, beginning with a childhood camera and later deepening through formal studies in film and photography at New York University, followed by years of creative and professional exploration in Buenos Aires.

After building a career in advertising and interior design, Oliveri returned fully to photography, refining her practice through workshops with internationally recognized photographers.

Her earlier work focused on personal narratives, but over time her attention shifted toward nature — its beauty, fragility, and the urgent need to protect it.

Now based in Lisbon, her photography seeks to reconnect viewers with the natural world as a source of balance, healing, and shared responsibility. Series such as A Kiss from a Rose reflect a quiet, emotional dialogue between humanity and nature, inviting reflection, care, and renewal through stillness and visual grace.

The Kindness of Lillies

Digital direct photo

Jennifer Parsad

Jennifer “ChaCha” Parsad works in fine art photography, creating symbolic portraits that examine identity, spirituality, and inner fracture. Raised in Jersey City by Puerto Rican parents, her first-generation experience continues to inform a visual language shaped by memory, belief, and resilience.

After thirteen years of service in the United States Army, Parsad turned to photography as a way to process survival and transformation.

Her images draw from classical art and contemporary surrealism, using mannequins, constructed environments, and deliberate gesture to suggest devotion, rupture, and renewal.

Figures appear suspended between states, assembled rather than fixed, inviting reflection rather than explanation.

Parsad’s work has been shown internationally, including exhibitions connected to the Chelsea International Photography Competition and the APA Chairman’s Choice Exhibition.

She has also received recognition from the Fine Art Photography Awards and the International Photography Awards.

Currently completing her Associate of Fine Arts in Photography at the Academy of Art University, Parsad continues to develop her ongoing series The Many Chambers Within, a body of work centered on interior worlds and quiet confrontation.

Marco Parenti

Marco Parenti is a Milan-based photographer whose work is shaped by a lifelong curiosity and a deep attention to everyday life.

Though self-taught, his photographic practice reflects years of careful study of the great masters, leading to a refined understanding of light, shadow, form, and color. Small, often overlooked details become the quiet center of his images, elevated through clarity and restraint.

After a long career teaching pharmacology at a university medical school in Milan, Parenti has continued to pursue photography with focus and dedication.

His work is driven by observation rather than spectacle, favoring simplicity, balance, and honesty in composition.

Travels across Europe and beyond further inform his interest in street life and the subtle poetry of ordinary moments.

His photographs have been recognized in national and international competitions and exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions in Palermo and Venice. In 2024, he published his first book, Ogni cosa piccola è bella, pairing his images with haiku-inspired poetry.

Courtney Robertson is an American fine art photographer working with tintypes made through the historic wet plate collodion process.

Based in the United States, Robertson creates one-of-a-kind photographs using natural light and traditional methods that date back to the nineteenth century. Her practice is shaped by formal training at the Penumbra Foundation and continued study with master tintype artists, grounding her work in both skill and deep respect for photographic history.

Robertson works slowly and with intention, allowing time, light, and chemistry to guide each image.

The process demands patience and accepts imperfection, qualities that give her photographs a quiet sense of honesty and presence. Each tintype exists as a physical object rather than a reproducible image, encouraging viewers to pause and engage.

Through this endangered photographic process, Robertson highlights the beauty of craftsmanship, impermanence, and touch. Her work invites reflection on time, memory, and the value of images made by hand in a fast digital world.

Rik Roos is a photographer based in Amsterdam whose conceptual work explores emotional states such as desire, doubt, loneliness, and regret. Rooted in personal experience yet socially resonant, Roos’s photography reflects contemporary relationships shaped by distance, technology, and unspoken loss.

His recent series, Two Strangers Now, examines the emotional aftermath of ghosting—the sudden, unexplained disappearance of a loved one.

Drawing from his own experience, Roos captures moments of stillness and quiet disorientation, revealing how intimacy can abruptly turn into absence in the digital age. Domestic interiors become psychological spaces, where light, framing, and restraint evoke tension and isolation.

Influenced by arthouse cinema and artists such as Edward Hopper, Roos creates images that feel familiar yet unsettling. In 2025, he self-published his first artist book, Echoes of Desire, and his work was featured in PF Magazine and Visual Poetry Journal.

A graduate of the Academy for Photography in Amsterdam and a former ICP student in New York, Roos balances conceptual practice with social awareness and emotional clarity.

Choke - Are we two strangers now Digital photography

Digital photography 47.5” x 35.5”

Recovery Upon Struggle

Digital photography

Natalie Vorontsoff

Natalie Vorontsoff is a fine art photographer whose work is shaped by a background in fashion and a deep sensitivity to emotional nuance.

Her images explore identity, memory, and transformation through quiet moments, subtle gestures, and carefully composed stillness.

Vorontsoff approaches photography intuitively, working slowly and allowing her subjects to settle into a natural state of presence.

Soft, diffused light and restrained color palettes create a sense of timelessness, while styling and form are used as expressive tools rather than decoration.

The result is imagery that invites reflection rather than immediate explanation.

Her work has received international recognition, including being named IPA Photographer of the Year in 2025, a Silver Award at the Prix de la Photographie de Paris, and a World Photography Awards Silver distinction. Featured at ImageNation Paris, Vorontsoff’s practice continues to gain global attention. Across her work, she encourages viewers to pause, feel, and engage with vulnerability as a quiet but powerful force.

Jason Ward works across documentary, street, and studio photography from his base in downtown Los Angeles.

His images are instantly recognizable for their dry humor and deliberate awkwardness, drawing attention to the strange performances people adopt when they know they are being seen.

Ward holds an MFA in Photography from CalArts, where he developed a practice grounded in visual critique and cultural observation.

Rather than aiming for flattering representations, Ward intentionally leans into discomfort. He studies the visual language of prom portraits, corporate headshots, and stock photography, using familiar formats as a point of entry before quietly unsettling them.

Ordinary poses slip into absurdity, and recognizable archetypes begin to feel unstable.

Ward’s work reflects a world shaped by avatars, exaggerated identities, and fractured belief systems. Through humor and exaggeration, his portraits question how identity is constructed, repeated, and distorted in contemporary visual culture.

Yi Han & Yaorong Lu

Yi Han is a fine art photographer who works closely with his wife and creative partner, Yaorong Lu. Together, they create thoughtful photographic stories that explore emotion, memory, and human relationships. Their images are carefully staged, using soft light and strong composition to create a calm, cinematic feeling.

Their work often focuses on identity, family life, and the passage of time. Personal experiences play an important role, allowing their photographs to feel intimate while still connecting with a wider audience.

Each project begins with an idea that grows through discussion, research, and shared creative decisions, giving space for real emotion to appear within constructed scenes.

Yi Han and Yaorong Lu have received international recognition from major photography awards, including the International Photography Awards, Tokyo International Foto Awards, and the PX3 Paris Photography Prize.

The Last Resort #1

Digital photography

Gallery hopping in New York

Agora Gallery is located within the heart of the Chelsea Arts District with available hours from Tuesday – Saturday 11 am - 6 pm.

Opening receptions are held once a month, giving you the opportunity to meet the artists and view a variety of original artwork. Visit our website and subscribe to our mailing list to stay up to date on all events and happenings – www.Agora-Gallery.com/mailinglist

Chelsea, New York City