Luna Volta (a portrait of an unknown self)
2023
Eugene Petrushanskiy
Volta – the Italian word for “turn.” In poetry, "volta" is the turn of thought or argument.
Luna Volta is a poetic play on luna(moon) + una volta(once).
The body of work that I am presenting is the most sincere journey unveiling the depths of my visual habits and the photographic argo. It is an essay for the future, which I started writing to myself years ago, and received only now, without even sending it.
The Luna Volta series refers to poetry, light, death, love, intimacy, and personal tragic moments.
The photographs that are included in the project and also were included in the solo exhibition of the same project which took place last year, represent a 16-year body of work, a poetic expression, a vagabondage between the desirable lightness of being and the dramatic life experience.
These photographs are about the sense of heart.
This series of photographs unveils visual habits and the creator's photographic argo.
It is about how much the artist defines artistic, and poetic from the practical side of photography and where those two meet.
The artist's narration via his photographs is very intimate, not to say vulnerable. There is always something or someone behind the images. There was never a specific practical goal in the creation of those images, but there was always a lyrical story that reveals itself with time. Artist's images combine a cinematographic narration, based on a very deep passion for cinematography, and often bring in a look of the movie stills, and an obsession with everything bodily, animal, harmed, and vulnerable, but in a highly esthetical way.
Sometimes we put ourselves in the box where we don’t allow the photography to go to that spiritual element and I always welcome that, but at the same time never neglect the rational and narrative side of photography
There is a lot of weird stuff in my images, while the other images can be very plain or simple in a narrative way. But all of a sudden all of that makes sense if you pay attention to the details. Most people don’t.
Eugene Petrushanskiy - b.1985 in Saint-Petersburg. Currently live and work in Tel Aviv.
