March 2020 has become significant for world history. After all, not only the states closed the borders, we were forced to close the door of our house from the inside. Each person has become a bearer of potential danger to others, regardless of social status, psychotype, race, gender, age. Accustomed to seeing the world as accessible, tangible, consumable and so small, now they had the opportunity only to observe their usual life from afar through a computer monitor.
It was no longer necessary to go to a retreat to meet ourselves against the backdrop of picturesque mountain slopes, we were in for a brutal encounter with our own ego in real conditions. For some, this meeting has become a painful discovery of inner emptiness, and for others, an amazing adventure of knowledge.
It was in the process of getting to know oneself that the "Giant" series appeared. During the quarantine period, I began to create staged self-portraits at home. In the photo, which was the beginning of the series, I seem to be hiding behind house plants in the corner, symbolically and succinctly denoting the existing dead-end state of each person during a pandemic. In my subsequent works, although I turn to self-irony, nevertheless, photographing myself in the nude, I live moments of self-acceptance.
Over time, the series of self-portraits went beyond the fun of self-isolation and became a personal diary, where each picture can be associated with important events, thoughts or intimate feelings.
The giant awakens empathy with his spontaneity and openness. And if the portrait of a person is his story, then the space around the object builds its meaning.