Man With Bear by Nadia Sablin

Nadia Sablin

Currently residing in: Brooklyn, NY

Website: www.nadiasablin.com

Work Statement:
I was born in Leningrad, Soviet Union, a city and country that no longer exist. The names changed after I left, the substance too. After growing up and getting a photo degree in the US, I went back. Not to St. Petersburg, and not to Russia—the legality of that was complicated. I found myself in Ukraine, in a small town where the Old World still existed. There is a sculpture garden where cows and goats pasture. People get water from wells. Traveling circus and zoo is a high form of entertainment. I took pictures for two years. The faces, the expressions of the people I encountered made me feel like I was in a fairy tale, a place Other Than. I tried to capture them as they were: old, dignified, magical.

Bio:
When I was twelve, my family moved from the center of baroque Leningrad to a cheap apartment in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. There, I found a way back to beauty through art and photography. I attended the Cleveland Institute of Art and subsequently Rochester Institute of Technology, from which I graduated in 2002 with a degree in Photography. I traveled extensively through the United States, falling in love with America and its landscape. It wasn't until my moving to Ukraine for two years, that I began to photograph people. Currently I'm exploring portraiture in Brooklyn, NY. I am 26, and feel there is no better age to be.