Markus Berger Portrait Olympic Gold Medallist Anna Gasser & Created Stunning Artwork With His Shots

Austrian freestyle snowboarder Anna Gasser just won an Olympic gold medal in Pyeongchang. Photographer Markus Berger worked on a photo art project with her and other international athletes just recently.

The idea was to combine Asian comics art with photography and merge the two together in a nicely balanced and natural way. Basically to take advantage of both art forms and come up with a new visual impact that catches attention and yet isn’t 100% easy to separate at first sight.

“We were looking into manga art and other modern comic styles but had to accept the fact that manga is 100% Japanese and there is no specific comic style that Korea is globally known for. We aimed for something more established with a reputation that would be recognizable at first glimpse and around the world,” Markus Berger says.

“Therefore our research led us to traditional Korean painting, sketching and calligraphy. Together with a Korean artist we were able to come up with a harmonic mix of those art forms, which we were able to implement together with our photos,” he adds. The end result is a combination of traditional Korean art and photography. Bringing together the worlds of top notch performing athletes and deep Korean history and culture.

Anna Gasser is symbolized by an IMOOGI (Korean dragon). Imoogi stands for complex emotions such as devotion, kindness, and gratitude. Anna is at the top of the game. She had to learn the hard way and has been at the Olympics before. She is fully grown, experienced and the top contender for gold.