Sinziana Velicescu is a freelance photographer, director and cinematographer based in Los Angeles, California. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California with a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Film. Her photography explores human intervention with nature in landscapes that have undergone political, social, or environmental change. Her photography has been shown in galleries and exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Montreal, and Melbourne. In her work as director she focusses on music videos and documentary.
Sinziana began her career as photographer at the age of 18. Picking up her mother’s 35mm camera, she began roaming around Los Angeles neighborhoods – focusing on interesting walls, cars and desolate landscapes around her. Sinziana has always used film, which forces her to be selective regarding subject and perspective. She is inspired by Los Angeles, the stories it tells through its questionable architecture and plentiful strip malls, and the stories it doesn’t tell when it becomes abstracted through a photograph.
Her ongoing series “autopia” is dedicated to a Los Angeles icon – the automobile. Back when the city was considered an automotive paradise, the car represented a major fraction of the American Dream, a symbol of pride for the working class American.
Her latest photo series, “On the Periphery” explores the aesthetic and utilitarian effect of architecture in and around parts of Los Angeles that are less visited by the general public. Minimalistic in nature and inspired by abstract expressionism and graphic design, it represents a coming to terms with her hometown by shooting subjects that she finds beautiful for their vibrant colors and clean lines, but are simultaneously devoid of obvious signs of life and exude a feeling of emptiness. The result is homage to ‘The City’, combined with a hidden desire to escape to another place or perhaps another time.
