The Place That Doesn’t Exist / 4

The Place That Doesn’t Exist grew out of my photographs taken during different trips — to Kakheti, Perugia, Almaty, Minsk, Baku, Konaev, Vitebsk, and somewhere between Naples and the surrounding islands. When I took these photographs, I could not imagine that over time they would become connected to one another. Later, as I developed my practice of working with still life, I intuitively began selecting some of these images to combine them with my “shadow” compositions. I was surprised that the places were never repeated, but at the same time, the photographs gradually began to form small imaginary territories — fragments of places that do not exist on any map, but where, for some reason, I feel happy and at home. I brought these fragments together through hand-cut collage, combining photographs from my trips with still lifes I had created. For me, this project became a way to see how scattered impressions can gradually turn into an inner landscape.