“In this SEA - liminal, real, imagined and/or perceived- that both separates and binds  YOU & I :

           
    I              SEA           YOU”

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Brazilian-Spanish multidisciplinary artist and designer based in Barcelona, Irena Menk explores her lifelong haiku, I SEA YOU, throughout her photographic practice. Shaped by years living overseas and by the sea, the work reflects both a physical geography and an inner landscape. The sea becomes a space of distance, transition, and reflection - both literal and Jungian - while the homophonic title playfully reveals a second reading: “I see you”, suggesting photography itself as an act of perception and encounter, bridging self and other, reality and dream. Influenced by Jungian thought, her photography embraces the surreal as it naturally exists in the real world. Here, photography becomes both witness and metaphor, allowing the visible world to reveal its quieter psychological landscapes. Her images, often abstract yet minimally altered beyond color, follow a consistent framing language that draws past, present, and future into a visual tide, always flowing back to the triad ‘I (the) SEA (&) YOU’, a meditation on water and time.

 

Menk’s numbered and signed giclée photographic prints have been collected internationally and exhibited across Europe since 2020. Her work was included in a teNeues international art publication (2023) and featured on the inside cover of Italy’s D La Repubblica magazine summer edition (August 2025). She has also been featured by LensCulture (Netherlands), Fisheye Magazine (France), Der Greif (Germany) , Balkan Collective (Romania-based);

Open Doors Gallery (England) and has received multiple awards. 
 

BACKGROUND//

Irena Menk is a Brazilian-Spanish artist and designer based in Barcelona. She helped shape the visual editorial  language of ELLE Brasil’s print edition for several years, also spearheading its transition into the digital age through landmark projects, including LATAM’s first fashion iPad magazine and original fashion video content, receiving multiple professional awards. She has since worked internationally as a creative strategist and consultant. Her authorial object design practice -spanning limited-edition jewelry and capsule collection of artisanal glassware - has been published and sold internationally, including features in Vogue and specialized design publications.