Unmasked

Intimately surreal portraits from the photographer behind Chloë Sevigny's iconic cover for The Cut

In childhood, Russian-German photographer Elizaveta Porodina's image repertoire predominantly consisted of Moscow's brutalist buildings and the art her mother introduced to her at home. This imagery coalesced and imprinted upon her subconscious, forging an enduring fascination with darkly romantic aesthetics. Porodina's later transition from clinical psychologist to photographer was intuitive; both fields involve a commitment to understanding emotional behavior. By showing rather than telling, photography offered Porodina another pathway to the subconscious mind. Un/Masked is the artist's first book and features text by art director and editor Fabien Baron. The extensive selection of Porodina's experimental fashion and fine art photography showcases her uncanny ability to extract the underlying emotions in her entrancing productions. She plays with melancholic symbolism--establishing associations that are sometimes ambiguous, other times stark in their clarity--through cinematic and documentary-style imagery. Whether in dramatic black and white or vividly colored artworks, the photographer dramatically "unmasks" her subjects--which is to say, herself--time and time again. Elizaveta Porodina (born 1987) is a Russian-born artist, photographer and clinical psychologist known for her surrealistic themes and use of symbolism. She lives and works in Munich, Germany. Her clients include Dior, Carolina Herrera, Jo Malone, Moncler, Vogue, Louis Vuitton and Numéro. She has held exhibitions at the Ostlicht Vienna and Bikini Berlin.