Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Defying Gravity in Anka Zhuravleva’s Photography

After singing for a rock band, working as a tattooist, and modeling for Playboy, Russian artist Anka Zhuravleva settled behind the lens. Her photography vacillates between a surrealistic and editorial aesthetic, although, it seems, that she cooks up pieces that resonates with both. With soft, painterly yet obscure visuals, the photographer puts forth a collection of imagery that drives the viewer inside a feminine dream world in which girls and women in anachronistic costumes fly and float among sublime, hazy landscapes.

After singing for a rock band, working as a tattooist, and modeling for Playboy, Russian artist Anka Zhuravleva settled behind the lens. Her photography vacillates between a surrealistic and editorial aesthetic, although, it seems, that she cooks up pieces that resonates with both. With soft, painterly yet obscure visuals, the photographer puts forth a collection of imagery that drives the viewer inside a feminine dream world in which girls and women in anachronistic costumes fly and float among sublime, hazy landscapes.

Her latest series, Distorted Gravity, features various women suspended in mid-air. Most are floating above their beds, drifting away from what holds them down to the real world. Some others fly away through their windows, an image reminiscent of Wendy Darling as she flies through her bedroom window in search of her love interest, Peter Pan. It is said that her pieces show similarities to the 1948 portrait photograph of Salvador Dali by Philippe Halsman, titled Dali Atomicus, which perhaps served as an inspiration for her floating subjects.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
The selfie is the self-portrait of the digital age that is changing the way we see and think about ourselves and eachother. But what happens when we remove our faces from our photos? How would we look without our heads? Ibiza, Spain based designer Giuseppe Pepe presents us with this same question in his series of photo manipulations titled "Loosing My Mind". He describes it as a project of "anti-beauty," going against our intrinsic desire to present our most beautiful self to the world.
Theo Mercier is a young, French artist currently based in Mexico City. Working primarily in sculpture and photography, he often inventively incorporates found objects into his work. He arranges commonplace items in ways that can be grotesque or sexual, playing with the tension between alluring colors and textures and off-putting content.
Jason DeMarte, an artist/photographer based in Michigan, combines images of artificial flora and fauna and processed food (and other commercial products) to create a new depiction of the natural world in the series “Confected.” Even in the tranquility of each image, the scenes reflect the dissonance inherent in the contemporary experience. The artist says he uses “completely unnatural elements to speak metaphorically and symbolically of our mental separation from what is ‘real,’ and compare and contrast this with the consumer world we surround ourselves with as a consequence.” Follow the artist on Instagram here.
Kyle Thompson is a young photographer on the rise. He began shooting at age 19 in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois, and in the last couple years has amassed a substantial body of work that shows a surprisingly adept and concise voice for such a young artist. This work, just released in a book titled Somewhere Else is comprised mostly of self-portraits taken in various abandoned locations found while on a road trip traveling the country.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List