OLGA CHERTOVA

Capture the emotion

Olga Chertova is already a remarkably photographer who has been awarded II Prize by the Russian Epson Photo Competition in its last edition. Her artistic experience has been developed in many fields. She has experience as a theatre actress, teacher of graphics, a graphic designer, web designer, owner of design studio, fashion photographer and curator of art projects. She’s currently focusing her activity in the artistic creation as a painter and photographer and taking part in exhibitions. Our present issue introduces her photographic series called Maternity in which he tries to capture the male emotion having a male hypothetic pregnancy as a framework.

The paradox is really interesting from the beginning. One could think if a man could experiment a pregnancy his body would be adapted to that circumstance, so he would be like a woman and that paradox would have no sense. But it’s really fascinating to think about that question just looking to Olga Chertova’s photographs in which there’s a powerful black and white giving them an intimate atmosphere, almost as a withdrawal.

It’s interesting the portrait of a pregnant man looking deeply female. Hysterics is the first piece in that series. It shows the man’s first reaction to the news of his own pregnancy. “He doesn't know what to do with that...Maybe it's a reason to change his life. Pregnancy is metaphoric. It may be a new way, new experience, new changes of his life and he is afraid of them.” In front of an unknown experience everything begins to shake.

And reactions succeeded each other from crying to pain. Crying and Eater are deeply expressive and desperate because he knows is completely alone in front of everything and everybody. When colour appears is in a subtle way, just to show us his body’s tone, raw and anxious.

“After knowing that a person have a spectrum of different emotions - tears and being nervous (title Crying), anger to himself and to that situation (title Eater). In Russian we call it "self-eating", but I don't know is it good word in English... After anger that man tries to calm himself (title Self sedation) and he believes in a good future (title Hope) finally we saw a last photograph- a pregnant man thinking about his baby (title Maternity)”. It’s a really shocking work because it makes us wonder about the social roles and face up to the fact that existence is always an individual experience so we live always alone despite our attempts of hiding that loneliness behind companies and conventions. Olga Chertova’s photography invites us to discover ourselves beyond all those conventions.

OLGA CHERTOVA in NAU NUA

MATERNTIY. Exhibition  here
METAMORPHOSIS. Exhibition here

Text by Juan Carlos Romero

Photo by Olga Chertova