PERSON OF THE TIMES OF RENAISSANCE
Interview with photographer and artist Vera Blansh
www.verablansh.com @vera_blansh
www.greenmodels.agency @green_mgmt
LB: You are a photographer, but as we know you have also tried your hand at designing clothes and painting. How can you combine all of this?
VB: I have been fond of painting and art for a long time, but only with my husband, the talented artist Evgeny Handusenko, did I start making real art projects. The most impressive one? Probably the inflatable sculpture “Signal” for the satellite company Field Bee, 4 meters wide and 5 meters high, which we made together for an exhibition in Belgium. They had to surprise and attract attention, and we had to create something that could be transported, given its gigantic size. So we sewed everything in Kiev and inflated it on the spot.
Many of my exhibition art projects were still related to photography. In 2018, I presented a series of 26 photographs with veterans of the stage for the charity project "Off-Stage'', which included ballerinas, models and actors. Incredibly, after showing them at the Theatre at Podil in Kyiv, the same exhibit was shown in three other places. Concurrently, I had the "Plastic & Plastics'' exhibition in the Museum of Kyiv History, "Shapes of Freedom" in the Museum of Ukrainian Diaspora, "Impersonation" in Shcherbenko Art Center, in cooperation with jewelry designer Alla Zhmaylo.
Even in quarantine I made the first pieces for my clothing line Vera Blansh Clothes. The jackets, coats and bags could not have been originally mine had I not added some unusual drawing elements to them. In October 2020 I was invited as costume designer to shoot a music video and I created six images for London director Taisia Deeva. The music video will be released in March 2021.
LB: You shoot a lot of portfolios for beginner models. What does it mean for you to help a new star rise and what do your models achieve?
VB: I don't just shoot portfolios for models, I have now opened my own Green Models Agency and I actually work as a model scout for other bigger agencies like Women Management Paris. I have a good eye, I can see who will succeed although I started a year ago, my girls have already done Louis Vuitton, Fendi shows in Tokyo. I have gone back to the beginning of my career; it's no accident it has come full circle.
LB: Tell us where it all started when you began to understand that you wanted to look at the world through the lens of your camera?
VB: Back to 2007 I shot some successful modeling tests and model scout Tatyana Cherednikova recommended me to "Lilas" model agency. That is when it all started. Only the best "new faces" were in my shoots. For example, Alex March in my studio is still a little bit shy at her first professional shoot, and suddenly, what a transformation - she is already working for Dior, Prada, MIU MIU and becomes the face of Tom Ford.
Less than a year later, I was invited to assist Ernestine Ruben, a photographer from New York who was then giving the workshops in St Petersburg. Thanks to her, my works were presented for the first time at a photographic exhibition. In 2011, I organised my personal photo exhibition "Ghosts of the city" which was held at Gostiny Dvor. Large prints showed the store windows of fashion stores. Inside each window were elegant mannequins dressed in Chanel, Dior, and Prada, and the architecture of a multicolored Moscow was reflected.
Not surprisingly, I returned to Moscow and decided to devote myself entirely to fashion photography. I was lucky enough to work with strong stylists and I had my first publications in magazines.
LB: How did you feel when success came so quickly?
VB: That was just the beginning of the journey. I could only fully understand my style after I went to study and traveled in the UK and America for a few years.
In the beginning, I was so eager to move on and I chose a photography course at Central Saint Martins in the UK. London became the city of my inspiration. Everything about London inspired me: the exhibitions in museums and galleries, especially “Savage and Beauty”, dedicated to the genius Alexander McQueen; the many creative people around me, passionate to work. The city captivated me with its freedom of expression and boldness, level of creativity and speed. Before you know it, you're on set and the amazing storm is whizzing by. My work has been published in magazines such as Facking Young, ELLE Korea, l'Officiel Russia, Harper's Bazaar, and Marie Claire. After I moved to Kiev in 2016, I was invited to do a project for Vogue Ukraine, with famous Ukrainian artists Vlada Ralko, Vladimir Bludnikov and Ilya Chichkan. I am very proud of this project. The editors wanted to go the tried-and-true way and shoot in the artists' studios, but I moved everything to the photo studio and asked the artists to make images directly on the paper roll backgrounds, which would define their style with a few strokes. You should have seen how the crew fought for those art pieces after the shoot. We had to cut the backgrounds.
Then there was the impetuous trip to America in 2016. In L.A. I shot actresses from Russia who only wanted to work with me. Afterwards, I went to New York and shot the cover for Cosmopolitan Shopping, fashion stories for Risk and Fashion Fanzine magazines.
