HOPE IS A WHISPER Solo Show by Liezl Zwarts
HOPE IS A WHISPER
Solo Show by Liezl Zwarts
10 – 15 November, Lilia Ben Salah Gallery Lilia Ben Salah Gallery 6 Av. Delcassé, 75008 Paris
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Winner of the 2025 Paris Photography Prize (PX3) in the Fine Art/Nude category, South African artist Liezl Zwarts unveils a new series of work, HOPE IS A WHISPER, presented in Paris for her first European solo exhibition, alongside Paris Photo Week. |
The exhibition draws its central metaphor from kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer and gold. A philosophy that sees breakage not as the end of beauty, but as the beginning of transformation. The artist weaves gold threads onto her photographs printed on linen canvases; scars are illuminated, and what was once shattered becomes more radiant than before. Through her lens, Zwarts photographs women whose cracks reveal strength, turning fragility into testimony and imperfection into brilliance.
HOPE IS A WHISPER is for those who have stood at the edge of despair, a reminder that hope is not always visible, but it is always present. Stitched into every fracture, waiting to be noticed. The work does not seek to erase pain but to honour it, revealing the strength that emerges from quiet perseverance.
The exhibition marks a significant moment in Zwarts’ evolving fine art career, following more than a decade of acclaimed work in the commercial photography industry. Zwarts began her career in New York City, working under celebrated photographers such as Sante D’Orazio and Jason Kibbler, with whom she spent four years refining her craft. Now, she turns her lens inward, reimagining the boundaries between vulnerability and strength through her nuanced interpretation of the nude figure. Her work is deeply rooted in personal experience, exploring resilience, transformation, and the quiet power of hope.
This year, Zwarts received Gold in the Fine Art/Nude category at Prix de la Photographie Paris (PX3), a recognition of her artistry and emotional depth. She will also take part in the ART ICON group show presented alongside Paris Photo.
About Liezl Zwarts
Liezl Zwarts is a South African photographer whose practice spans fine art photography and collaborative portraiture. Her work explores themes of resilience, identity, and the female form as a vessel of lived experience.
Drawing on personal narrative and a meticulous visual language of skin, shadow, and shape, Zwarts creates photographs that are both intimate and universal.
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Joanne Carter is a British photographer, photography journalist, editor and curator and the founder and editorial director of TheAppWhisperer.com, an independent international photography publication established in 2009.Her journalism, criticism and commentary have appeared in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, BBC, Vogue Italia, LensCulture, Popular Photography, Android Magazine, NikonPro, DPReview, Which Digital Camera and Which Camera. She has lectured internationally on photography and mobile art, served as a juror for international photography awards, and exhibited her own photographic work across the UK, Europe, South Korea and the United States.Alongside her editorial work, Joanne's photographic and postgraduate research explores death, grief, memory, representation and social inequality through contemporary photography, participatory practice and visual research methods, with the longer-term aim of developing this work through doctoral research.Through TheAppWhisperer, she continues to publish independent photography journalism spanning contemporary photographic practice, mobile imaging, photographic apps, computational photography and emerging imaging technologies.Joanne is available for editorial commissions, photography projects, judging, curatorial work, speaking engagements, consultancy and selected collaborations.
