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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.

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