Julia Lazumirska

   I am a lens-based artist from Kyiv, Ukraine. My journey into photography began after years spent in the legal and economic fields and as a housewife. A turning point of deep self-reflection led me to photography as a way to release long-held, unrealized creative energy.

  My visual language development has been strongly influenced by the aesthetics of modernism, especially by the work of American artist Georgia O'Keeffe, as well as the Japanese understanding of imperfect beauty and the reconciliation of people with nature. I was inspired by O'Keeffe's works because they evoked a strong connection with my native Ukrainian soul. Ukrainians love nature and have a deep desire for life at a genetic level, which is manifested in folk art through natural motifs and vital colors. Also, our culture is not about domination over nature, but about interaction with the forces of nature—and this brings us closer to cultures where nature is honored. I also admire the work of photographers such as Harry Callahan, Masao Yamamoto, Irving Penn, Ralph Gibson, Robert Mapplethorpe, Mona Kuhn, and Rinko Kawauchi.

    For me, creative photography is a non-judgmental observation of the visible external world and the hidden inner world of the soul, which I portray, collect, and study in the form of photographs. We cannot capture reality completely; at the same time, we can study its fragments, dive into the details, and gain necessary experience. That’s why I use close-up. My pictures are always a compromise between the earthly and the comprehensible, as well as the existential and mysterious. They convey the ghostly beauty of a more subtle world that we do not see physically, but may feel through our transcendental channels.

   The main themes I explore are acceptance of life and a “new spirituality.” We are all one in our interactions with each other and with nature; only egos, beliefs, and fears separate us. I focus on the intersections between reality, feelings, and consciousness, in which there are no dividing lines. By pushing the boundaries of photography as a documentary medium, I add another dimension—a sensual worldview of unity.

  I create a visual acceptance diary of my own difficult feelings, using the documentary, artistic, and healing powers of photography. Nature and people are the main objects of inspiration and observation. Flowers also become silent witnesses to internal dialogues. All objects find me by chance, and the understanding of the issue I need to resolve usually comes later. At first, photography as a document is only a hint—a starting point when working with raw reality. After that, I become a researcher of feelings, analyzing photographic material, transforming the original images, and interpreting my experience through forms, lines, and color. A state of acceptance is reached at a certain unexpected moment in the process of “rewriting the diary.” In this state, time and space compress, a decolonization of consciousness occurs, and my “little self” connects with the “Big Self,” and life as a whole shifts. The shortcomings of this world always catch up with you, so my visual diary also becomes a self-reminder.

  Even though my pictures convey acceptance as a form of respect for life, they emerge from mental struggle—as my “spiritual self-portraits.” However, the act of self-knowledge is not as important as the moment when the viewer finds a part of themselves in my photos. I hope that both the processes of creativity and contemplation can become a unification of different people through a shared “feeling of the moment.”