Alina Kisina's photographic series 'City of Home' might, at first glance, seem merely aimed at capturing the daily life of her hometown of Kiev, Ukraine. Yet Kisina's strangely evocative photographs are concerned less with documentary impressions than with opening up realms above and beyond the mundane images that define the surface of her work. For the subway steps, skylines, facades, and factory lots that Kisina depicts resonate with an order that seems not of this world. Her pictures—often quite literally—reflect realms that seem to exist side-by-side with or beyond the mere material givens of her everyday subject matter. Although superficially static, her serene, perfectly composed photographs actively lead us into higher realms that are uplifting and light: they cause us to transcend the materiality of everyday existence and enter into planes of experience heretofore unknown.
"...Kisina has developed a half-abstract, half-representational photographic style that brings out the spirituality of the mundane objects and situations she photographs using dynamic formal means that are no longer compatible with postmodern irony..."
Raoul Eshelman from 'Performatism in Contemporary Photography: Alina Kisina'
(Series "New Critical Approaches").*
Alina Kisina is a Ukrainian photographer living in London. In 2010 Kisina's work from the exhibition 'Zerkalo|Mirror' was featured in 'Thinking in Unity after Postmodernism' - an international conference on innovative approaches to aesthetics, literature and film at the University of Munich. Work from the series 'City of Home' is being shown at Format 2011, an international photography festival in Derby.
A minigraph with a commissioned essay by Dr. Raoul Eshelman has been produced to accompany the show.
* Please visit www.ARTmargins.com to read the full article.
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 Alina Kisina in conversation with Raoul Eshelman : Saturday 5th March |
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 Alina gave an exhibition tour / artists talk on Sat 5th February |
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Principal sponsor With thanks to Hamish Barrie - Altered Images Scotland for printing and to Edinburgh Arts for support with framing.   |
