Erika Nina Suárez (b.1993) is an American photographer born and raised in West Palm Beach, FL. She was brought up in a multigenerational household with her Hungarian mother, Nicaraguan father, and maternal grandparents. Erika's family sought asylum in the United States in the early 1980s in order to escape enlistment to the frontlines of the Contra War in Nicaragua and to flee from the collapse of the Hungarian People's Republic. Erika's upbringing and her family's unique lifestyle have significantly influenced her style and how she chooses to approach her practice.
Suárez's ongoing personal project Left of the Stream, Between Two Mountains, is rooted in her desire to reconnect with Hungarian culture and her ancestry that her mother and grandparents were forced to abandon. Living a culturally split existence between America and Hungary, Suárez pairs a personal visual sequence of century-old Hungarian village traditions alongside intimate portraits of her extended family members abroad, and immediate family living in the US. Utilizing medium and large format film as her great-grandfather once did, she captures her subjects with the paralleling intent of her ancestors by using photography to eternally preserve their physical existence.
Erika is currently living and working between Hungary and Texas.
Selected clients include The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Dallas Morning News, and the University of Texas Systems.
Erika is also a recipient of the 2021 Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund awarded by the Dallas Museum of Art and is a member of The Luupe and the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA).
For assignments, exhibitions, and work-related emails, please contact: erikaninasuarez@gmail.com