Syrko also uses water, ice, steam and colored gels to disturb the surfaces of her photographs, drawing attention to planes we usually overlook or ignore. These methods feel at home in her work for the Dutch National Opera & Ballet, which is also informed by the dreamlike world it inhabits, by fairytale stories such as “Swan Lake” or larger-than-life narratives such as “Der Rosenkavalier.” Her poster for the Dutch National Opera & Ballet’s “Carmen” shows a woman’s face mottled by ripples, for example, while her image for the “Maria Stuarda” production shows two women plunging their faces into water. Syrko was invited to shoot two consecutive campaigns for the company, in 2022 and 2023. The only other photographer to have been invited twice is Erwin Olaf, a Dutch image-maker celebrated for his slick, hyperreal work.

She studied Art History at the Academy of Art in Lviv and draws on existing art in her work, be it Surrealism’s subversive take on society and sexuality, or the Renaissance’s rebirth of a certain way of looking. Her poster for the production “Giulio Cesare” draws on its Baroque origins, for example, her subject lit and even painted to evoke the sensuous, fleshy paintings of the time.