Misha Davydov
Artist Statement
My interest in photography resides in the multiplicity of its nature: it can create a record, reveal something an eye cannot see, even construct reality. The complexities of this medium help me process my own experience in the world as I sort through layers of identity and collisions of cultures. I was raised in Russia and left home at the age of 17 to pursue an education in the Netherlands and subsequently in the US. I began to think in English on the verge of adulthood and had many formative experiences within a cultural context radically different from the one I grew up in. The irreversibility of time, unreliability of memory, and attempts to mitigate my different, often contradicting, identities serve as driving factors for my making.
Ambiguity is the main value of a representation for me. My favorite images are hard to place and raise questions about the world outside of the frame fragmenting it. An idea that I often come back to is that there are two ways to go about photography: you can take pictures or you can make them. My practice involves both of these approaches. Though at times the position of an observer satisfies me, I often feel the need to reflect back by constructing an image. I perform in front of the camera and concoct narratives that positively confuse a bodily response with the visual and get lost between the real and the fake. Negating the incongruities between the two lets me get closer to authentic experience.
Foremost, my practice is a space for me to challenge the world as I know it. The pictures I make help me see reality not as predetermined but instead as malleable and constantly emerging. Despite the introspective nature of my process, I want it to expand towards the viewer and convey a sense of ambiguity within the piece that would invite for reinterpretation of the context around it and, by extension, my audience’s place in their own environment.
Misha Davydov |Portland, OR
