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Portrait of Valya

About

ARTIST STATEMENT

I am a London-based photographer working at the intersection of documentary, performance, and personal storytelling. My practice explores how our daily lives connect with the subconscious and dreams, revealing the inseparability of reality and fiction. I am drawn to rituals of loss and transformation, and to the ways individual and collective histories leave their traces.
I approach photography as a tactile practice, using analog techniques, rare lenses, hand-printing, and zine-making to evoke memory and emotion. For me, the materiality of the image becomes a way to hold fragile, intimate moments where the visual meets the sensory.

Exhibitions

2026 This Love, group exhibition, Peggy Jay Gallery, Burgh House, London
2026 Analogue Wanderland, group exhibition, Birmingham
2025 The Last Train, group exhibition, The Old Waiting Room Gallery, London
2025 New Beginning, group exhibition, Pop Up Gallery, London
2025 Personal exhibition within the performance Metamodernists in Love, London
2025 100 Images, group exhibition, Spazio Magma, NABA Rome
2023 The Absurd, online exhibition, The Chateau Gallery, USA
2023 Spring group exhibition, Lighthouse Gallery, London
2022 HPS group exhibition, Lauderdale House, London
2021 The Dreamers, online exhibition, Holy Art Gallery, UK
2020 Art & Death, online exhibition, HuuNuu Gallery, UK
2024 | Julia Margaret Cameron Exhibition, Barcelona
2021–Present | Group exhibitions, London, Rome and USA

Selected Awards

2024 Julia Margaret Cameron Awards — Winner, Professional Category
2023 Photo Oxford Festival — Women & Photography, Nominations
2021 Zima Photo Competition, London — 1st Place

Education

2025 Visual Storytelling — Oleg Kolimbet
2024 Photography course — Anisia Kuzmina
2023 Photography course — Slava Novikov
2022 Photography course — Kati Turkina
2020–21 Directing in Photography — Alexandra Monovceva, 1-year personal course
2008–12 Master’s Degree, Institute of Contemporary Art, Moscow. Documentary film direction. Diploma with honour.

Professional Experience

2022 → co-founder and teacher, KiNO educational project, London & international
2020 → freelance portrait, concert and theatre production photographer; film editor, London

2020–23 → editor of documentary film Forgotten songs about tribes and their beliefs in Amazonia rain forest. Deepforest, London;

2014–19  → director assistant, project DAU by Ilya Khrzhanovsky, London

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