About the Artist
Born in 1985 in the city of St. Petersburg, Russia, Mariia was raised as an artist. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, she attended prestigious schools focused on art education. As a young adult, she obtained a 6-year degree in graphics from The Repin Institute of Fine Arts (arguably Russia’s most prestigious fine-art academy).
Although Mariia’s art education was primarily focused on painting, photography has fascinated her since childhood. From her early days, she still remembers the first camera she used for hobby shooting, a Canon 35mm film-SLR. After graduating from the Fine Arts academy, travel to a certain island encouraged her to become more serious about photography.
This island is Valaam, a place known for serenity and sanctity, surrounded by the vast waters of Lake Ladoga (north of St. Petersburg). On the island is Valaam Monastery, an ancient Orthodox-Christian landmark, today home to hundreds of monks and visited annually by thousands of pilgrims from around the globe. Surrounding Valaam monastery are numerous smaller monastic dwellings, vast fields and forests, and abundant opportunities for exploration and inspiration.
See the Valaam gallery for photos shot on Valaam island.
Having fallen in love with Valaam while participating in a volunteer program, Mariia later returned to work as an artist, painting to restore churches previously destroyed by the Soviets. While not in the churches she explored the island, camera in hand, immersed in the creative possibilities of multi-exposed film (a technique where a single section of film is exposed multiple times).
Most of the photos on this site were multi-exposed on film (the artistic effects were not created in post editing).
Life in Northern Russia, especially Valaam, is not for the weary or faint of heart. The island is isolated, its climate harsh, and for half the year its days and nights see only darkness. For many of its inhabitants, little by little, this cultivates an uncomplicated, sincere, honest, and truly beautiful spirit. It encourages focus on things eternal, seeing the Divine, obtaining clarity of one’s vocation. Multi-exposed film is a perfect medium to convey, if only partially, this progression.
Such is the context of Mariia’s work. It’s a fusion of fine-art education with the less-esteemed but eternally-valuable work of seeking beauty, the Divine, amidst hardships and setbacks.
Adapted from the original Russian by Maria Timofeyeva