Kharkiv School of Photography: Soviet Censorship to New Aesthetics:
Part 3 - Contemporary Photographers Exhibition 2
© Roman Minin
Roman Minin
Roman Minin (b. 1981) is a prominent, even though young, Kharkiv contemporary artist. His graphic and stained-glass works are well-known and frequently exhibited. Part of his artistic endeavor is based on photography as the media.
In his photographic projects Roman Minin used photographic media as a background for his primitivistic color drawings. Minin draws with color markers over 60 mm black-and-white negatives, which he then prints on color paper.
Three rivers intersect the city of Kharkiv, and numerous bridges connect their banks. Burned Bridges (2012) depicts them intact in the photograph, while the artist whimsically burns them in coloful primitivist fires.
“One night I had a dream that there was war action in Kharkiv, and I saw fighter jets and bombers in the sky. When I woke up I took my camera and went out to take pictures. The city was peaceful, but I couldn’t get rid of my nightmare so when the film was developed I draw images of war into the frames,” - thus the artist explained the idea of his Dreams about War (2011) project. Minin comes from the Donbass region, which may explain his insights (one may call it clairvoyance) about the events yet to come: it took three years for the artist’s nightmare to materialize in today Eastern Ukraine’s reality.
View Portfolio: Dreams About War
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