Self-Reflection – PhMuseum

In this ongoing self-portrait collection, I replicate on womanhood, identification, equality, and human rights, whereas analyzing vulnerability, insecurity, and the seek for self as each lady and artist, via visible symbolism and classical portray references.

Begun 9 years in the past, this ongoing collection of self-portraits serves as a visible documentation of the artist’s life, formed by each intimate private experiences and broader social and political realities. Through sustained self-reflection, the work engages with common themes similar to bodily transformation, the questioning of identification, worry of the unknown, experiences of misogyny and inequality, alongside a disconnection from one’s roots, disgrace, and anger, knowledgeable by the artist’s expertise of being born in Russia and navigating the legacies of its social and political atmosphere.

Kristina Varaksina is persistently positioned in opposition to stark white backdrops, her physique remodeled, obscured, or marked by supplies that subtly shift throughout the collection, marking the passage of time. These interventions operate as each bodily and psychological thresholds, suggesting states of transition, loss, safety, and enforced silence, whereas reflecting the strain between visibility and concealment.

The work carries a intentionally claustrophobic high quality—a up to date echo of classical portray — the place tightly framed compositions deny escape. Varaksina meets the viewer’s gaze immediately and unrelentingly, collapsing the gap between observer and topic. The repeated use of the self-portrait resists idealization, as a substitute revealing the physique as a web site of endurance, fragility, and confrontation, formed by each private historical past and exterior forces.

Guided by an ongoing inquiry into the insecurities and self-searching of a girl and artist, the collection locations emotion at its core. Varaksina focuses on translating inside states into visible type, permitting personal experiences to floor via gesture, materials, and gaze. By drawing consideration to non-public feelings, the work invitations viewers to acknowledge their very own inner struggles inside these pictures, positioning the non-public as collective, political, and deeply human.