Vera Ryklova: Works
Vera Ryklova’s work is rooted in performance and expressed through photography, reminiscent of some pioneering visual artists such as Sarah Lucas or Sherman. In her images, she role-plays, transforms into, and invades alternate personas, weaving elements of her own past and present into the frame. Her work is clever and at times even humorous and awkward, but always remaining intimate and tender. Although she has a number of projects in her oeuvre, it is all rooted in topics of identity and societal expectations, self-fulfilment and contentment. One could really view her whole practice as one large project with various chapters. Ryklova explores both the social construction of the self and the self- concept. Through the medium, her own body, and using her own experience in engaging existing society, she mirrors its norms as they define a single life. In her work, Ryklova explores desire and the sense of self within the concept of social and cultural belonging.
It is a challenge to narrow all of a country’s talented practitioners into five individuals, but identifying five artists that represent the diversity of practices is an undertaking that members of the Futures Photography Platform like to take on.
Co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, Futures pools together the resources and talent programmes of leading photography institutions across Europe, in order to increase capacity, mobility, and visibility of its selected artists. By bringing together a wealth of resources and curatorial expertise, each talent selected by the Futures members gains access to an unprecedented network of professionals, markets and audiences.
PhotoIreland, the Irish member of the platform, is interested in putting forward artists that have demonstrated experimentation with the medium, appreciating those practices that engage with poignant socio-political issues creatively, with defined narratives and personal visual vocabularies. In the selection, special importance is placed on their career stage, as one of the aims of PhotoIreland is to facilitate extra support in establishing international connections and expanding their networks and, in short, helping professionalise their practice.
For the previous editions, PhotoIreland nominated Aisling McCoy, Barry W Hughes, Ciaran Óg Arnold, Dorje de Burgh, George Voronov, Jamin Keogh, Megan Doherty, Miriam O’ Connor, Róisín White, and Yvette Monahan. Now, on the following pages, you will discover the works of the five Irish artists, nominated in 2020.
