The cover image for this issue of Artkrush is a detail of Village de montagne (Mountain village), a photograph by Swiss artist Loan Nguyen. As in many of her works, a lone figure, stranded in a deserted space, suggests an enigmatic, melancholic narrative. Nguyen's series Mobile is on view at Hermann & Wagner in Berlin through December 8, and her photographs can be found at Galerie Esther Woerdehoff's booth at Paris Photo from November 15 to 18.

Of Vietnamese decent, Nguyen was born in 1977 in Lausanne, Switzerland, and studied photography at the Applied Art School in Vevey. Her portfolio ranges from fashion and editorial photography to more personal series; she has done work for Hyères Festival for Fashion Arts, Vogue, Elle, Wired, and several other high-profile clients. Her exhibitions include shows at Galerie Esther Woerdehoff in Paris, Hermann & Wagner in Berlin, Duncan Miller Gallery in Los Angeles, and Galerie Marangoni in Florence.

For her recent book De retour, published by Christoph Merian Verlag, Nguyen accompanied her father when he returned to his native Vietnam after decades away. She photographed his awkward reintroduction to the culture and the country's haunting landscapes. In one tender image, her barebacked father, with his belly slipping over khaki pants, boyishly peers out a window onto a once-familiar cityscape. The Mobile series, completed between 2000 and 2005, is more typical of Nguyen's approach; against muted backgrounds, such as pastures, near-empty beaches, and tangled trees, individuals adopt pensive and cryptic poses. In Gant rouge (Red glove), a woman sports poppy-red boxing gloves in an empty field, while in Débarcadère (Wharf), a grey morning envelops a woman staring into a lake. Slipping human presences into natural environments, Nguyen captures lonely moments with a sweet lightheartedness. (LM)