Photo exhibition. Victoria Ivanova. Still Thoughts Automatic translate

Is the boundary between the concepts of “who” and “what” so unconditional? Photographer Victoria Ivanova, at her exhibition "Naturmysl", which opens on January 20 at the Moscow sports art club "Gallery" (Pechatniki), will present the best works of recent years, united by an attempt to get away from dogmatic, basic definitions of what is alive and originally deprived of life, animated and not… At the exposition you can see more than thirty black-and-white and color photographs made in the genre, which the author calls “still life”, contrasting this term with a traditional still life.

Victoria Ivanova’s photoanthropocentrism is so strong that any nail or clothespin becomes the author’s emotional mirror, his speechless language in an attempt to dialogue with the viewer. In contrast to the usual still life, all the characters of Ivanova are active. Photographic still life Ivanova is no longer a still life, like dolls in puppet shows - are no longer toys. But unlike parsley and colombin - fruits, vegetables, work tools do not play themselves. Chess, pears, nails become projections of a person, like African voodoo dolls or Slavic amulets, filling photo works not with one-day fiction, but with content that is close to the literary concept of “non-fiction”.

Victoria Ivanova speaks about her exhibition: “Most of all I like to work with inanimate objects. Still life is my favorite, most important genre for me. More precisely, "still life." With this word I call what I do. I like to tell stories with the help of everyday things - vegetables and fruits, clothespins, nuts and adjustable spanners. I like to “revive” all these objects in photographs, to give them the opportunity to live a small still life. This genre allows me to realize my fantasies exactly in the form in which I want. To do this, I do not need to go to distant lands, look for landscapes, meet the sunrises, wait for the necessary lighting and weather. I don’t have enough patience for this. All that is needed is a dark room, a light brush and a little inspiration. ”

Victoria Ivanova, Ph.D. in economics, advertiser, photographer, member of the Russian Union of Photographers. Author of publications in such magazines as: “Camera Obscura”, “Russian Photo”, “Practical Photoshop”, “Digital Photo”, “Digital Camera”, “Digital SLR Photography” and others. Member of more than 30 foreign and domestic exhibitions. Victoria is the repeated winner of the Russian Art Week photo award in the Concept category, Russian Photo Week (Moscow, April 2012). (First place in the Concept category), Art Week in Berlin January-February 2012 (First place in the ART photo category), Outpost contest 3/4 of the way (Third place), International exhibition-contest portrait art in the Central House of Artists, Moscow - 2016. (First place in the category "Children’s Portrait", First place in the category "Character").