Contemporary aesthetics’ art photography

When did you start working as an artist and why?

I grew up in USSR. Well, truly you could sense already at the time the Perestroika vibe in the air, the innovative alterations that changed the course of history. Like most of the children there, I was assigned to ballet classes, music and art school. As far as I remember sculpture and drawing was my main interest along with theatre classes. I was later sent to schools in Ireland and Scotland, where I developed a deeper sense of curiosity towards a different culture and the visual arts. My parents were quite conservative in supporting a career as a professional artist. I had to get a BA in Linguistics, Philosophy and International communications so for them to let me continue my art studies in London. Theatre remains a passion of mine, through that perhaps I got the interest in staging my photos. My first project started about 3 years ago.

How did you get to your current artistic practice?

I feel like it was the sequence of events: all places around the world, I have been living in, all people I have met along the way, all studies I have taken brought me to my current self. I think that pushed me to start artistically expressing myself. Technically, I couldn’t take any commercial jobs while waiting for my Green card so I started shooting artworks and submitting to the open calls. The very first response was to show “To The Sky” at The Armory NY and moved like a snowball since.

Who or what influenced you?

I guess all the cultural studies I got at The University of the Arts London mixed with philosophy, psychology, neuroscience and quantum physics. Many different things can be drowning my attention, initiating a multilayered process. I question the established and the conformed ways, I am inspired by researching different perspectives, in space, in images in our emotions and in our minds.

What is your art concerned with? What do you want to express?

I am at the very beginning of my artistic journey and just learning my way. So far I was into humans and the essence of humanity, that’s where projects “Gender Play” and “Emotions” are coming from. However, I feel like moving to a bigger scale now. I am thinking of Cosmos a lot and the general arrangement of things in the Universe.

Your GENDER PLAY series invites to a closer look, yet it is set to provoke a no-judgmental reaction, a way to freedom. How did this project start? What was the inspiration behind this?

I started to work on “Gender Play” right after I moved to LA from Paris. The “female everything now” was trending and booming in America however the majority of the wealthy male population was still doing their way and everyone was turning a blind eye.

I mean, we all know those stories. Considering the consumerism and objectification of the female body everywhere you go, Gender Play is a very soft visualization of modern hypocrisy.

Do you think that your works would help the narrative about the future of our world in thinking differently about gender?

I tried not to be emotionally involved with the subject myself just being an observer. I wouldn’t like to come across as a feminist either as for me it is fundamental human rights and to consider yourself as a feminist meaning to admit the inequality. I go for collaboration over competition. I assume this is a more European way of thinking. However, It was quite interesting to show the project in different countries and get all kinds of feedback.

In conversation with artist Vlasta Gary and Anna De Luca, Arte Globale Editor in Chief, EU division.

Gender Play series photographic works by Vlasta Gary are on show on ARTSY

VLASTA GARY, Gender Play, Contemporary Conceptual Photography

Apr 6th – May 10th

Vlasta Gary NY Silk Series was showcased at ARTE GLOBALE booth during Armory Show week Scope New York 2020