For some reason, as a society we sanctify “youth”. You may say that this project for me is an attempt to do the same. Each one of my heroines is for me, a goddess each one of their gestures is sanctified.
artist: Kristina Rozhkova
project: The Bliss of Girlhood
I met my models for “Girls” by chance, while out on a walk in my hometown this summer. I instinctively knew that I wanted to shoot my next portrait series about them, to spend time with them, and almost join them in their play through photographing them.
In working with my models I especially liked working with the notions of “affect”, “sensuality”, and the interplay between the concepts of the “aberrant”, “erotic” and “childlike”. I sought to find the my own so-called “adult” experiences reflected in the world of childlike simplicity and beauty. I enjoyed being enthralled by the image of the slightly-opened mouth, the relaxed, Balthus-esque poses; the image of a strand of hair slightly out of place or a gesture that I saw as an expression of almost-religious trepidation.
I do not fixate on the “erotic” here. For me, these photos are not about eroticism for eroticism’s sake, or even about eroticism at all. Rather “Girls” is about being able to catch and reexamine that transient, waifish, liminal moment between “almost childhood” and “almost adulthood’ that I have already passed in my own life. For me this photoset is an attempt to get at the heart of vitality as a concept, to examine life in all its forms. “Childhood” and “blissfulness” converge with “aggressive sexuality” and “disquiet.”
These themes are very present in my previous work as well, the conflict between “power” and “weakness” “sensuality” and “aggression”. All this converged in the images of my “Girls” who are always full of contradictions. The beauty and the essence of “waifishness” or “girlhood” for me, is in its transience…
editor : Ecaterina Rusu