Dmytro Sobokar
Dmytro Sobokar is an experimental photographer who has participated in almost two dozen collective and solo exhibitions around the world, including most recently in Basel, Switzerland at ST-ART art fair presented by FORM Galerie. Dmytro is a member of the World Photography Organisation (WPO, UK) and the National Society of Photo Artists of Ukraine (NSPAU).
The three most notable series in Dmytro Sobokar’s portfolio entail Project ORCH / Night Edition, Project ARHELE, and DREAMONS. Each one of these series in conceptually unique from one another but utilize similar experimental practices in execution. Dmytro will often use strobe flash lighting, low ISO settings, and multiple / long exposures to achieve his desired effects. With the exception of the Project ARHELE series, most of Dmytro Sobokar’s work is lightly digitally-altered, relying more on experimental camera and lighting techniques. But even Project ARHELE’s main digital manipulations is cropping and placing figures on top of each other.
In DREAMONS, the figures appear like statues, their skin and tone seemingly similar to fine marble. This effect leaves a classical experience but with a thoroughly experimental approach of shifting their bodies through long exposures and leaving attributes which emulate certain behaviors with various illusions. For example, some of the works will leave the impression of angel wings, from a figure shifting her upper torso and hair to the right and left through long exposures. Another example would be a figure creating a illusory quality similar to depiction of Hindu Goddesses with multiple arms, such as the Goddesses Durga, Kali, and Lakshmi. Within all these compositions, there is a great sense of motion and stillness simultaneously; stillness in the statuesque qualities of how the figurative form is presented in tone and texture yet in constant motion with hallucinogenic qualities which seem to be covered in a mist of lighted sfumato.
Project ARHELE has connotations similar to pop art, but with a darker conceptual approach. The figure is subtracted and distorted with bright colors amongst monochromatic bright-colored backgrounds. Their heads are removed, or concealed, and seemingly have quasi-aggressive actions of an outsider concealing and controlling their bodies. In essence, the conceptual intention of this series is the erasure of individuality. As if these individual forms were reduced to slabs of organic substance, the series has conceptual connotations of the dichotomy between the collective and the individual, or even capitalism versus socialism. These power structures which are subtly conveyed in the series reveals a dark removal of identity, yet presented cynically in entertaining colors.
Project ORCH / Night Edition is an experimental series taking flowers and conveying them otherworldly entities. In immense darkness and a subtle white glow amidst motion, these flowers are the fine tunings of classical ballet or orchestra. The florals represent a sense of ambiguity and hope within the enduring and ensuing darkness, in synchronized harmony, rather than a resistance or struggle. Project ORCH / Night Edition presents nature as an enchanted form which is subdued in the monochromatic presentation, in a manner of a dream-like sequence challenging our pre-conceived notions of the natural world.
Conceptual variation and hypnotic overtones is how to best describe the portfolio of Dmytro Sobokar. Through experimental practices and creating dream-like sequences with minimal digital alterations, he utilizes photography beyond traditional aspects of documentary or portraiture. His application of revealing both the light and dark attributes within a subject, both from physical and ruminative elements, conveys a conceptual configuration based in altered perceptions, illusions, and redefining pre-conceived associations with traditionally-recognizable subject matter, such as florals or the nude figure.
