karina murniece

Russian-speaking Latvian. Photographer, filmmaker, and artist. An advocate for self-expression. A lover of movement. Born in a small village in Latvia, Karina moved to Ireland at the age of 24. After living on the green rainy island for twenty-one years, she followed her heart to Bali.

At the core of her work is an exploration of authenticity, self-expression, and the emotional weight of lived experience.

Her practice is rooted in observation and personal narrative. She creates visual diaries of her own life, driven by an almost urgent need to preserve it. Moments of happiness, melancholy, love, and grief; the presence of her children; the places she moves through; the people she meets. She believes that an ordinary life, when truly seen and lived authentically, becomes extraordinary.

People are central to her work. She is drawn to those who are willing to step outside of expectation — to be awkward, exposed, even uncomfortable. She is not interested in perfection, but in freedom. In her portraits, she often pushes into exaggerated or hyper-sexualised expressions as a form of rebellion against social conditioning that teaches us to hide, shrink, and behave. It becomes a way of reclaiming agency, confronting shame, and transforming it into something unapologetically visible.

Recurring motifs in her work include discarded objects and things left behind. They reflect an emotional landscape shaped by early experiences of feeling unseen, unwanted, and abused. Through these images, she explores themes of abandonment, value, and the overlooked beauty of what is usually dismissed.

Ultimately, her work is about presence: removing the masks we have been taught to wear and allowing something real to emerge. It is driven by a desire to shift perception — to help viewers feel seen, understood, and less alone in the parts of themselves they were taught to hide.

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LOCATION

BASED IN BALI. CAPTURING STORIES WORLDWIDE.

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