Marta Syrko

Marta Syrko is a Ukrainian photographer, who mainly works with portraits, nude photography and complex projects.

Marta was born in Lviv, where she also studied art history and art theory at the local Academy of Arts. The knowledge of colour, composition and aesthetics she later applied to create her unique photographic style. The influence of Renaissance art is especially visible in her Naides series and her various female portraits.

Light is the artist’s main tool, which she uses to rethink the painting traditions of the past and create works that approach a cinematic experience. In her photography, Marta compares the real and the fictional by manipulating textures such as fabric, smoke and water, with finding a new approach to portraying the flesh as her ultimate goal.

She also looks for inspiration in nature, not only in native Ukrainian landscapes but far beyond. However, her studio has always been the centre of her work: this is where she can play with light and create illusions using mirrors, flowers, smoke and water.

Over the last decade, Marta has presented her work in Paris, London, Arles and Linz. In 2019, her Light Dance-series was shown in Paris, as a part of the ImageNation Paris exhibition. In these works, the photographer focused on movement, investigating chaos and harmony. While the moves on the images seem to have no order, the looks on the women’s faces tell the viewer that there is an unrecognized scenario behind their performance. In her latest works, Marta Syrko tries to rediscover the perception of the human body by fragmentation, making us perceive it as we have never seen it before. The artist also works with topics such as nationality, climate change and self-awareness.

Social projects have also become an integral part of Marta’s work. In 2020, she created her Sun’s Children series, a series of elegant portraits of children with Down syndrome, in order to spread awareness and ease the stigma around them. In 2021, the Dzyga gallery in Lviv housed her exhibition dedicated to orphans and their image of themselves. The artist has also been taking photos for animal shelters for many years.

Marta is currently based in Amsterdam, where she develops her new projects and sells her previous works.

Last update: 22 September 2022