There’s an owl sewn — don’t stir —
Onto the pillow near us,
O, gray Moorka, do not purr,
My grandfather will hear us.
 
Nanny, candles will not burn,
Mice are scratching, fearless,
Why was that owl ever sewn?
I’m scared of his appearance. 
                        Anna Akhmatova
(transl. Andrey Kneller)
 
Photographic archives are a source of great inspiration to me. Ever since I found an old family album in my mom’s closet, this kind of photography has continued to beguile me. Faded images, in which figures loom like spectres. Faces become blurred, watery shapes whirl, delicate scent hovering over them. It’s the perfume of time. I close my eyes and images begin to pulse under my eyelids. I use photomontage to create a new reality: a child’s fantasy fed by the world around, by memories. The present entangled with the past. And now I know, now I feel that I should use wax to enhance the impression of distance and inaccessibility that people or places enchanted in time provoke in me. Hot wax covers the image and as it congeals, it covers the photo in a veil of unremembrance. It’s up to me whether I want to remove part of this wax cover. I touch selected fragments of the photograph with a sharp tool. I scrape off, I reveal, I wound…