Grief
They say that grief has 5 stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But no one tells you that they are not set in line like train stops on the way to recovery but rather scattered and encountered as swings of a pendulum, going back and forward as if there’s no escape. This is a sort of grief that me, my family and my community lived through during the last 2 years, grieving the war and its aftermath - lives, livelihoods and dreams that are lost.
As a photographer, capturing this grief, both through people around me and my own body, was my way of putting up with what seemed inconsolable. All the models are members of the Ukrainian diaspora in San Francisco, where I live and work. I used my signature method of location/props as a catalyst to access raw and deep emotions. I also used simple measures like double exposition, long exposition and pattern augmentation when necessary to add to the surrealism of the photograph.
This series received Silver at the Tokyo International Photography Award and was featured by See.Me cimmunity in NYC.
(1) Self-portrait, multiple expositions, San Francisco Bay Area, Feb 2022
(2-3) Model - Katya Pistunova, Stanford, 2022 + news footage
(4) Model - Anastasia Yuhimchuk, 2023
(5) Self-portrait, ink on paper, San Francisco Bay Area, 2022, San Francisco Women Artists Gallery, Groups Show, October 2024
(6) Self-portrait, long exposure, 2023, Art Bias, Group Show, August 2025
(7) Self-portrait, gouache on paper, San Francisco Bay Area, 2022
(8) Self-portrait, 2022
(9-10) Model - Anna Alba, San Francisco Bay Area, 2022, published in Estimag
(11) Model - Inna Pavlova, San Francisco Bay Area, 2023
(12) Model - Kateryna Kiamarsi, San Francisco Bay Area, 2022, published in Artells Magazine
(13) Model - Daniela Dovganych, San Francisco Bay Area, 2023
(14-15) 2023