Ivan Radman (b. 1978) is a photographic artist from Croatia. He studied photography, first at the School of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb, then at the UK-based Open College of the Arts. He worked in graphic design for more than a decade before moving to Luxembourg and devoting his time fully to photography. As a freelance photographer, he worked on various projects, from advertising to concerts, dance workshops and portraits.

His first art project in the Grand Duchy was a street photography series “Luxembourg à pied” (Luxembourg on Foot), capturing everyday moments in the city. He also published a photo-book “Behind Me”, which focuses on human relations and the expat experience through images of objects and places that matter most to us.

For the last two years, Radman has been working on a project that combines photography and graphic art, centred on recognisable motifs from Luxembourg and Croatia. First, photos are taken following patterns, surfaces, light-to-dark ratio, where the relation between colour and white space reflects the desired balance. They are then transferred to linocut to be carved, and during this process, much of what the photograph captured is lost to the material. It is this limitation that adds value to the final print, which also includes “errors” as part of its uniqueness.

Although the final product is a physical one, it is essentially a combination of the digital (mobile phone camera = machine) and the physical world (linocut + knife + hand = human). This opposition is typical of the current moment in time, the mix of old and new, modern and traditional, constantly reminding us that the dynamics between man and machine are never fixed.