VITA

NICOLA HACKL-HASLINGER (*1974) is an Austrian artist. Her passion for photography started quite early, when at the age of five, she took her first photographs with an Agfamatic camera. She continued to hone her creative skills as a student at a higher vocational school for arts and crafts in Linz (HBLA für Künstlerische Gestaltung) where she started taking photographs with a reflex camera and developing them in the darkroom. Engaging in analog photography was a formative influence on the development of her artistic work.

During this period, she also discovered a second passion, that of jewelry design, and after graduation, she started an apprenticeship as a goldsmith and silversmith. She was awarded the Künstlerpunze or Artistic Hallmark in 1999 and worked independently as a jewelry maker until she chose to focus her energies on photography. Nicola began advanced studies at the Prague School of Photography for Applied and Artistic Photography in Linz/Austria (Prager Fotoschule Österreich) from which she graduated with honors in 2011. From 2012 to 2016 she taught available light, portrait photography and the history of portrait photography as a lecturer at this photography school.

In addition to modern printing processes, Hackl-Haslinger is also very interested in alternative photographic processes. Her love of gold and other metals has continued and is an essential element in the artist’s work, however, and Nicola often uses and combines different forms like sheet metal, wire and also leaf metal in the creation of her photographs. Using a technique she developed herself in 2016, she is able to print photogravures directly onto 24 carat gold leaf.

In 2016 and 2018 she was nominated for the Peace Award St. Leopold for her photographic achievements. She also worked in collaboration with Oscar® winning composer, producer and pianist, Volker Bertelmann aka Hauschka. In 2019, she formed an ongoing creative partnership with composer and 3D artist Peter Manhartsberger under the name albapura. In 2023, she published her first monograph titled Beyond Time. In 2024 she was named a Photolucida Critical Mass Top 200 Finalist, and in December she received the Maine Media Scholarship Award by Photolucida. Nicola’s latest collaboration is with author Barbara Bullock-Wilson. Swan – A True Life Fairy Tale will be published in March 2025.

Nicola Hackl-Haslinger’s photographs are represented nationally and internationally. Her work is in private collections and in the permanent collections of the Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, Nordico Stadtmuseum Linz, Art Collection of Upper Austria, Schlossmuseum Linz - The Collection for Modern and Contemporary Art, Museum Angerlehner Thalheim, Gallery of Modern Art Klosterneuburg, Collection Erwin Hauser, The Paula Tognarelli Collection, Anton Bruckner Private University Linz, ESA - European Space Agency Paris, Museum Haus der Natur – Vega Observatory Salzburg, and Austrian National Library.

Memberships

Artist Statement

“I am trying to get to the bottom of things, not only technically, but also in a psychological and symbolic sense. I take an observer’s position and I try to document latent moods and secret moments in low-key colors and formal exactness. Moreover, I am striving to create an atmosphere of vagueness, somehow linking what is inside with the exterior, a process of unveiling and bringing something to light! A recurring motif is the presentation of innermost states, both with regard to the intellect but also to emotions. The photographs challenge the beholder to look closer and, work out the different layers, each one telling their own stories. I try to invite the beholder to stand still and linger over what he sees and maybe, apart from the space that is provided for individual interpretation, also find a moment of peace and harmony in this fast-paced time! This is maybe also the reason why my favorite piece of equipment is my wonderful copper printing press dating from 1900! For me one of the most memorable experiences in my photographic work was the moment in 2017 when after a period that was marked by experiments, innumerable setbacks and misprints and which lasted more than two years – I succeeded in printing the first perfect photogravures on gold! At last I was able to combine both my passions - photography and gold smithery!”

One eye of the photographer looks wide open through the viewfinder, the other, the closed, looks into his own soul.

Henri Cartier-Bresson