Russian-born Kristina Varaksina has resided in the USA since 2010 and currently lives and works in London.
She has taught photography at NYFA, New York and California Art Institute, San Francisco.
”Varaksina’s focus is to capture human emotion and the psychological impressions of her subjects’ mind – permitting the characters to project their internal reality. Works undertaken are keen to explore a female and child perspective, evoking their thoughts, dreams and hopes.” ~ Aesthetica magazine.
Awards and recognitions: Lens Culture Portrait Awards 2021 winner – single 2nd place, Portrait of Britain Winner 2020, Lens Culture Critics Choice 2020 Winner, BJP Portrait of Humanity 2020 Shortlist, AOP Open Awards 2020 Silver, IPA 2020 Honorable mention, PX3 Prix de la Photographie, Communications Arts, Int’l Photography Awards, APA National Award, Vogue.it BEST OF, Digital Photo Magazine, Applied Arts, CMYK Magazine, PDN Faces, PDN Emerging.
Galleries representing fine art work: Lumas, Berlin. Brownie, Shanghai. Hello World, Vienna. Themes&Projects, San Francisco.
Commissions include: Harper’s Bazaar, L’Officiel , The Telegraph, BBC, Fabric, Bonobos, Ugg, Sally Hansen, Cetaphil.
Someone’s Daughters
Josie Cole
Josie Bevan tells compelling, humorous and unexpected stories from prison. She is an award winning writer, blogger and presenter.
She’s a former prisoner’s wife and a campaigner for prison reform. In a previous life Josie was a film script reader and story teller before retraining as a nutritionist. When her husband was sent to prison for 9 years she found herself unable to discuss kale and began to document her new world. “Prison changed my life” will be written on her tombstone.
Samantha Prescott
My name is Sam and I received a 9 year prison sentence for drugs. I served 4 ½ years and prison and the remainder I will be on license in the community as a result of my ex partner. The irony was, it changed my life for the better! Sure it was hard and people thought the worst of me, they thought I was a snitch! I was even accused of sleeping with the officers which couldn’t have been further from the truth. I chose to rise above this and knew that I wanted to change my life and make it different for the better. So that’s exactly what I did. I used my time to gain as many qualifications as I could and also went on to receive a placement with an organisation where I was able to help others. It also brought me and my family closer and it changed my mindset. I hope that someday I will be able to use what I went through to continue to help those who may find themselves in similar situations that I was in.