"Once Upon Now - Studio Edition" Artwork

My artistic practice is shaped by aphantasia - the inability to form mental images - and my indigenous Chukchi heritage. Art for me is a tool for cognition. I can't see images in my mind, my inner screen is off. So the camera and the generative algorithm function as prostheses for my visual imagination, allowing me to find, create, and finally see what cannot exist in my mind's eye. Through macro photography I immerse myself in the micro-worlds of mosses, lichens, and dewdrops, entering a quiet dialogue with nature shaped by my Chukchi upbringing. Through AI-assisted digital art I explore what the lens cannot capture - inner archetypes and psychological states beneath the visible surface. I think of these digital works as fine art memes, providing visual experience and cultural meaning at once.What connects both is something I carry from childhood — the ability to feel into what I observe, to become the drop, the moss, the figure in the portrait, while keeping my own awareness intact.