The unique and famous “Light. Shadows. Perfect Woman” photography series has received many international awards, including the Sony World Photography Awards, where it received the first prize in the “Portrait” category and a nomination for the International Photographer of the Year.

“Light. Shadows. Perfect Woman” photography series has been exhibited in dozens of different galleries and museums around the world, including Somerset House, where the works of photographer Martin Parr were displayed at the same time.

George Mayer was born in Nizhny Tagil, Russia in 1985. In 2004 he graduated from the Ural College of Arts and Crafts with honors where he majored in environmental design. Up to 2007, he worked as an interior designer. He participated and became a prize winner of Russian national contests of architecture and design.

In 2011 George Mayer arranged his first personal exhibition in FotoliaLAB Gallery (Berlin, Germany). In 2012 he was a finalist of the contest Young Photographers of Russia after which he was admitted to the Union of Russian Art Photographers.

In 2017 George won one of the most prestigious world photography contests Sony World Photography Awards where the project “Light. Shadows. Perfect woman.” took the first prize among the professionals in the nomination Portraiture. After winning the project “Light. Shadows. Perfect woman.” was published in numerous specialized European editions about photography. The SONY company gave a grant for the project “Libido & Mortido”, the portraits from this project were exhibited in Somerset House, London.

Along with art photography, George Mayer works in commercial and fashion photography. Since 2009 he has been collaborating with internationally recognized modeling agencies and stylists. His photographs can be seen on covers of dozens of music CDs by such popular foreign singers as Chris Brown, Buller for my Valentine, Operator. And also one can see photos by George on books by acknowledged Russian and foreign writers and playwrights. Among them are the Nobel Prize winner in literature Mario Vargas Llosa and the famous French writer Bernard Werber. Some photos were also bought by Netflix for the film ‘Bright’ (2017) starring Will Smith and some photos were bought by MGM Television for the cult-favorite series ‘Fargo’.

Light. Shadows. Perfect woman.

George Mayer reveals the project  “Light. Shadows. Perfect Woman” through a special camera, the camera of perfectionism. Through this camera, the author sees the characters of his photographs: the light, the shadows, and the nature of femininity. It is considered temporal thus it becomes utterly conditional, nearly abstract. The concept of “Perfect woman” refers us to the plot of the film “The Perfect Human” (1967) by the Danish director Jorgen Leth. This short film symbolically depicts the feeling of anxiety and emptiness that haunts the bearers of conditional “perfection”.

Ksenia Larina, curator of the project.

Arranging the delicate balance of the correlation of the dark and the light the author discovers the obvious monumentality and duality of a perfect woman’s images. Within the space of the picture, the light becomes flat and the dark gets deeper subjecting all conventionalities and details. This way geometry of light becomes not only sculptural language but also correlates the meanings. “The Perfect” in the author’s photographs is contradictory in nature: on the one hand, it is monumental and complete and on the other hand it is naked and vulnerable. These controversial strains comprise the essential content of the photographer’s works.

Ksenia Larina, curator of the project.

Follow George Mayer on:
Website | Facebook | Instagram