Colour and shape form the spine of Olga de la Iglesia’s vivid photography
Minimalist elements combined with everyday objects form the backdrop of Olga de la Iglesia’s photography work. Enthused by everything we’ve created around us, she sees the mundane as a tool to create fascinating colourful imagery. “Human eyes see in colour. Through them, we understand reality by interpreting the way light comes down on every object, material, plant or being,” explains Olga. “This process alone is something that’s incredibly inspiring for me.”
With an approach that consists of a pure, authentic and vivid style, Olga manages to find extraordinary details in the arbitrary realities of day-to-day life. “Things out of their ordinary place capture my attention. I always love finding weird things in public spaces and things in spaces they don’t belong,” she tells It’s Nice That. “For me, taking a photograph is like painting a picture. It’s about conveying the exact quantity of shape, colour and texture,” she says.
Another wing of incentive comes from her wanderings to “faraway places”; since her childhood, Olga has been enticed by the diverse nature of other cultures. “Noticing all the differences between my world and the diversity of other cultures gave me a new perspective – it widened my imagination and shaped my being,” she explains. “I feel inspired by humans and by everything we’ve created around us. I feel inspired by those tools that help us to create other tools, by those spaces where we stand and live, and by the way we behave towards each other and towards ourselves. I feel inspired by how we are controlled by rectangular pieces of paper and rounded metal coins; by the way money rules our lives. All of this stems from colours and shapes.”
Complementary shades and punchy hues are pinnacle throughout Olga’s work. “Colours were there since the very beginning. They helped evolution by allowing us to identify, classify and connect with our emotions. In every culture, colour stands for a diverse feeling, meaning, emotion, pride, memory and habit. Still, they physically are the same to our eyes. The only thing that changes is the visual code we use to understand them.”
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Ayla is a London-based freelance writer, editor and consultant specialising in art, photography, design and culture. After joining It’s Nice That in 2017 as editorial assistant, she was interim online editor in 2022/2023 and continues to work with us on a freelance basis. She has written for i-D, Dazed, AnOther, WePresent, Port, Elephant and more, and she is also the managing editor of design magazine Anima.