Ksenia Mikhailova is a self-taught artist and photographer from Moscow, Russia. She has started her career as a photo editor and later took on photography and props styling. The main focus of her work is the everyday in its material dimension. She primarily works with still life, looking into the nature of mundane objects and the intricacy of their combinations. With her recent work she has been exploring other genres of photography, still keeping the focus on the quotidian. Her work has been featured in C41 Magazine, VogueWorld100, Calvert Journal and others.
Human Softness
Human Softness is my first personal photo series that is more about people than objects. Following my previous project about finding one’s inner home, this work goes further and reflects on questions of intimacy, fears, love and the fragility of the human body.
The idea of this series had been on my mind for years, yet something was always missing. It took me a long time to find myself and the people – my closest friend and my partner – who would feel comfortable to be photographed in this intimate way.
Human Softness is a story about opening up to another person and letting them see you in the real way. The photos are mostly closeups of the body, face turned away from the camera, as if the viewer was cautious not to hurt the other with their gaze, but to grasp the fragments, putting them into a sort of a jigsaw puzzle. This body of work is an attempt to document the process of exposing and exploring, feeling vulnerable and keeping one’s boundaries before another person’s eyes.
To view more of Ksenia Mikhailova’s work please visit her website.