For Nadezda, creating with intention affects every fraction of a second of every exposure; every gesture and movement of the mask; and every single processing choice. As such, when you look at her works, they have the pensive breadth of an oil landscape and the feeling of a photograph’s crucial second. “I have only three seconds to complete multiple exposures – often a dozen or more – use brushes to fling and spray chemicals, gravity to move it on the plate, and float paper using multiple masks with one hand, while flicking the light on and off with another,” she tells us. But, Nadezda still finds opportunity to embrace the limitations of the process, referring to it as “liberating”. She adds: “There’s a thrill to it, anticipation, excitement. It’s never stale. So much is happening at the same time, I’m fully immersed in the moment, holding my breath and relying on my intuition.”
It is difficult to capture the breadth of nature, the hills, the valleys, the waves and sun in all their picturesque glory. Nadezda manages all of this though, as well as a balance between ‘opposing’ forces that has become synonymous with her oeuvre – the physical and metaphysical, movement and stillness, time and timelessness, and singular and universal. With her book in collaboration with HackelBury Fine Art having come out earlier this year, each page brings us closer to the textures she masterfully assembles in her works. And in turn, each of these images bring us that little bit closer to the wonders of nature.
One Picture Book Two #33 : Elemental Forms is published by Nazraeli Press, you can find out more here.
