It’s easy to confuse Summer Wagner’s photographs for paintings. The captured gestures, colors, and backgrounds seem too perfectly placed, as if only a paintbrush could have rendered such ephemeral beauty. Her use of color-grading techniques enhances the visual appeal of her photographs, creating surreal and dreamlike imagery.

And yet, the photographer and self-proclaimed illusionist explains that it is her creative eye, her well-placed camera, and carefully thought-out props that help fill her photographs with their unique flair. Her work explores life in a post-industrial world but captures it through the eyes of someone who believes that the gap between fantasy and reality isn’t as wide as others may expect. Her work often blurs the lines between reality and dreamlike imagery. You can find her emotive images in NFT collections like “The Silent Hunt,” “Evolutions, Winter Solstice,” and one of her most recent projects, “Hands of Umbra.”

But before we jump into the breadth of her work, here’s what you need to know about Wagner, her genesis NFT collection, and where she’s taken her mystical artistic eye ever since.

Wagner took up self-portraiture photography in 2020

Summer Wagner first picked up a camera in 2020 and, shortly after that, started sharing her images on social media platforms like Instagram and X (then Twitter). In an interview with Art of This Millenium (AOTM), she shared that it was the community that she built on X that ultimately encouraged her to share her work as NFTs.

So, a year after picking up the camera, Wagner launched her first NFT collection. Her genesis collection, ‘The In-Between,’ was released on the art NFT platform Foundation in October 2021. It’s made up of 24 1-of-1 photography NFTs that were created throughout the summer of 2021. 

As she writes on her website, the collection “contemplates aesthetic dialectics between the cerebral and material, the natural and artificial, ritual and habit.” Her work captures profound connections between personal narratives and broader societal themes, highlighting the human experience.

These themes are consistently present throughout her collections, which, as she notes, go back to her roots and beliefs in the spiritual and magical. Her photography evokes feelings of nostalgia and longing, encouraging viewers to reflect on their own emotions and memories.

Her creative process leans on totems and other practices

While the Illinois-born artist may be newer to photography, she has been turning to writing since she was a young girl. Her background in film production influences her artistic vision and techniques, incorporating cinematic inspirations, practical effects, and color-grading skills. According to her interview with AOTM, Wagner has been journaling since she was six years old and now uses much of what she writes down to help conceptualize images as well.

In addition to her journals, totems (or objects with specific spiritual meaning) offer another source of inspiration and grounding for Wagner’s creativity.

One of Wagner’s most recent works, “Hands of Umbra,” is a 200-item collection across four images (each image has 50 editions each). In the collection’s PROOF description, Wagner shares:

“I love entering into a meditative state while creating, and letting the work naturally unfold, which is why I always have items (totems) around me that I find interesting and pull me into that subconscious space. With this series, “Hands of Umbra” I really focus on a collection of totems that bring me into that world easily: the jaw bone, the crystal ball, the dagger, and a flame.”

Sifting through the collection, you can see how those items not only helped Wagner channel her creativity behind the camera but also found their way in front of the camera as a source of connection for onlookers as well.

Her solitary practice of creating self-portraits has been a significant part of her artistic journey, allowing her to reconnect with her creativity and express her inner self.

Her work appears in celebrated curated art collections

In addition to continuously sharing her solo NFT collections, Wagner has contributed to two collaborative collections and exhibitions with other NFT artists. 

For art auction house Christie’s, Wagner added her work to the 2023 Cartography of the Soul auction, which included 30 other NFT artists like Sam Spratt, Justin Aversano, and Nadya Tolokonnikova. Her ‘Chemical Baptism Two: Trance In Myrrh” NFT is an image of three women in the dark of night. One woman is shown floating while the other two hold space for her and cleanse her with a water bottle. 

Wagner also contributed to "Moonbirds: Diamond Exhibition" by adding her "Hands of Umbra" collection to the larger exhibition. Moonbirds, the owl-centered NFT project, put on the exhibition as a perk for its community. Other contributing artists included Terrell Jones and Sarah Ridgley. 

No matter which of Summer Wagner’s collections you are taking in, you won’t be able to escape the feeling of magic, peace, and the simple things in life that each piece embodies.