This sense of distortion and disorientation is felt in the colour palette and lighting–pastel hues that dominate, with bursts of highly saturated pinks and purples. In one work, titled New Years at Home In a Dress My Mom Made, a figure appears as a ghostly apparition, or an angelic vision. Her blue silk dress glows under a bright flash, her hair merges into the tinsel-tressed tree behind her. The New Years tree, or yolka, commemorates the most joyful holiday of the year, replacing Christmas which was banned under Soviet rule. 

Uhlik is out of focus, as if jumping or mid-flight, her face distorted into a blur. The tree behind her, too, appears to be in motion. Perhaps it is the photographer who is falling, flying, descending or ascending. In Uhlik’s works, nothing is static, nothing is set. A feeling which is freeing and frightening in equal measure. 

VARVARA UHLIK is a Ukrainian visual artist based in London. She studied Photography at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, before completing an MA in Fine Art with Distinction from the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Her practice moves between photography, video, sculpture, and installation. Rooted in her upbringing in eastern Ukraine, Varvara examines generational trauma and the damage of Russian imperialism through its cultural and historical residues, and questions how memory is preserved, distorted, and lost. Her work has been recognised by BJP Ones to Watch, New Contemporaries, FUTURES Photography (nominated by PhotoIreland), and the Gilbert Bayes Award by the Royal Society of Sculptors.

ISABEL WALTER is a writer and curator based in Amsterdam. She currently works as Assistant Curator at Foam, and Editorial Assistant at Foam Magazine. She is particularly interested in art which expands the technical and conceptual boundaries of photography, moving image and new technologies.