Alexandra Bochkareva
Alexandra Bochkareva is a figurative photographer who has exhibited in Europe and Canada. She is the author of photobooks Redheads Stories and Foxes and has had her work published in Beautiful Life Info, Ginger Parrot, Ros PHOTO, Bright Side Me, Dzen, and My Modern Met. Alexandra has won first place awards with Pursue Pictures Photography Contest and Best of Russia competition as well as a finalist with Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize, INPRNT Photography Award, Trierenberg Super Circuit, International Photography Awards, and HIPA. Across Europe, Alexandra has participated in various speaking engagements and appointments such as serving as a juror for several photography competitions.
Ethereal and enchanted, Alexandra’s photography portrays beautiful women interacting with nature and beasts. The models often wear vintage attire alluding to points of history such as the Victorian era or even Medieval times. Containing high contrast, astonishing detail, and focused depth of field, Alexandra creates staged theatrical presentations, as if her women were acting for a major Academy Award-level film production. Whether portraying models becoming splashed with intense ocean water from the turning tide, having an owl perched on a woman’s head, or strategic outdoor set design with fire, Alexandra captures unusual interactions on film.
These fantastical photographs engage with a narrative bridging with history and a female primal spirit connecting with nature. The photographs are quite striking and could be mistaken for a Shakespearean theatre or even fantasy-based production. With an intense sense of communication, the artworks wish to convey a mood, a story, and theatrical poetry all at the same time. Frozen in space with perfect composure and delicate lighting, Alexandra explores how staged photography can interact with natural environments to instill notions of nostalgia, history, and fleeting moments yearning for escape.
One of Alexandra’s Birdy series pieces (pictured above) displays astonishing detail with careful depth of field for the staged natural scene in the foreground of a woman reaching for a raven. With bright red hair and an orange outfit, she stands as a sort of regal entity amongst the depiction of the deep woods. The raven appears trained and watches the model’s delicate hands brace to hold him within her arms. Exemplary of her sets of series of models interacting with beasts, the photograph engages with the viewer to connect with the natural world on a deeper level.
Alexandra Bochkareva uses cutting edge photography to portray new ways of interpreting nature and redefines notions of aesthetics in contemporary art. Nuanced and carefully planned, her photographs indicate use of theatrical techniques and prop-based presentations in photography offering narrative versatility in contrast to strictly documentive photography, which alludes more towards improvisational realism. Much like a fictional novel, Alexandra’s figures are more than just models, they are characters with deep notions of interactive qualities such as feminine posture, deepness in thought, and intense silence. These vivid photographs offer production values on a level rarely seen in theatrical photography, harkening the viewer towards natural interactions and historical allegories.
