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Jaume Llorens
Born in Porqueres, near Girona, Catalonia, in 1966, Jaume has been fond of photography since he was a teenager. In 2014 he took part in his first collective exhibition. The most notable shows have been the LensCulture group exhibition at Photo London 2023; a solo show at the Fundació Valvi in Girona in 2022; another solo exhibition at the Festival Mirades in Torroella de Montgrí in 2021; and a collective exhibition at the Valid Foto Gallery in Barcelona (OFNI Project, 2019).
Among Jaume’s awards are the: Top Pick, LensCulture Critics' Choice 2023; Top 50 at Photolucida Critical Mass 2023; 3rd place (singles) LensCulture Black & White Awards 2022. His portfolio 'Deep Inside' was selected at the Barcelona International Photography Awards, BIPA, 2019, and he won 3rd prize in the VI National Photography Competition Canson Infinity (Spain). Jaume is represented by Crane Kalman Brighton and Fotonostrum (Barcelona).
Michéla Griffith
In 2012 I paused by my local river and everything changed. I’ve moved away from what many expect photographs to be: my images deconstruct the literal and reimagine the subjective, reflecting the curiosity that water has inspired in my practice. Water has been my conduit: it has sharpened my vision, given me permission to experiment and continues to introduce me to new ways of seeing.
It’s always nice when, instead of pushing your own images on social media, you come across someone else’s. So a thumbs up for Instagram, which introduced me to Jaume Llorens. His images are a celebration of nature, and of place, with many derived from the area around his home close to the Lake of Banyoles in north-eastern Catalonia. And perhaps most importantly, they are a celebration of his own relationship with both.
Would you like begin by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, your education and early interests, and what that led you to do as a career?
I was born and raised in a working class neighbourhood of Porqueres, a small village in Catalonia, about 120km north of Barcelona and next to the Lake of Banyoles, something that has had a very decisive influence on my fondness for photography.
The lake is an unbeatable laboratory where you can experiment with the camera and at the same time a friendly space where you can be in permanent contact with nature. And without the need to travel far. Now I live a few hundred of metres from its shore. A real privilege.
The annual open water swim across the lake is much celebrated. It is very popular – around two thousand swimmers take part – and I have participated in it since adolescence. During the 2.2km swim, your relationship with the natural environment acquires another dimension.
I'm married, with two teenage children. I have a degree in Psychology, but I’m not practising. I earn my living as a web designer.
Like any other aspect of my life, I imagine that education and my profession may have had some kind of influence on my work as a photographer. I think that probably we can use landscape photography to represent any kind of human emotions. The external landscape as a mirror of our own inner. In my case, I think I have some tendency to look for a range of emotions around may be a low mood, melancholy… loneliness... In fact, I have the impression that some of my landscape photographs are just intimate self-portraits. I can recognize myself in them. There are also repeated traces of my character reflected in my images. And I imagine that other people can also recognize themselves in them.