ZAVADSKI × KHOMENKO
Art direction and photo - Yaroslava-Maria Khomenko
ZAVADSKI Studio, Vienna · January 2026
About the author
Yasia (Iaroslava) Khomenko is a Ukrainian interdisciplinary artist and fashion designer. She studied at the Kyiv University of Technology and Design, graduated with a MA in Fashion Design in 2010. Yasia works with textile experiments in an artistic medium of social co-participation, investigating new forms of material and color compositions.
I. VASES WITH SEASONAL FLOWERS
This series presents three still lifes focused on Roksolana Hudoba's vases with compositions of seasonal flowers. The arrangements are restrained, shifting attention from decoration to form, balance, and material presence. Flowers are treated as physical matter rather than symbols, emphasizing texture, weight, and impermanence.
Together, the images function as a study of stillness and observation, documenting temporary arrangements made by hand and existing only for a brief moment.
II. STILL LIFE SERIES WITH TABLE LAMPS
This series of still lifes centers on ZAVADSKI table lamps, approaching them as sculptural objects rather than functional lighting. The compositions draw from Flemish Baroque still life, referencing the visual language of Jan Cornelis Vermeien and Frans Snyders, while the use of chiaroscuro recalls Caravaggio’s treatment of light emerging from darkness. Light is not used to reveal everything, but to isolate forms, textures, and surfaces, allowing darkness to remain an active element of the composition.
Every arrangement was built physically in the studio, including improvised elements created from available materials. The process emphasizes touch, experimentation, and immediacy, placing value on the act of making rather than on perfect construction.
The resulting images sit between historical reference and contemporary gesture, treating still life as a space for material study, manual work, and controlled restraint.
III. ONE MINUTE SCULPTURES
The one-minute sculptures are temporary figures assembled from table lamps and clothing, created directly for the camera. The works explore the idea of personalising the lamp by transforming it into a character, specifically the image of a local figure dressed in a tweed jacket.
Each sculpture is built quickly, by hand, without sketches or digital mediation. The process itself becomes central, emphasizing immediacy, touch, and physical decision-making. In this context, the act of making a sculpture solely for a photograph is intentionally archaic.
The series also reflects on the displacement of creative imagery by AI-generated content. By choosing a manual, time-limited construction, the work asserts the value of presence, imperfection, and human gesture.
These sculptures exist only briefly, functioning as momentary forms rather than lasting objects, and are preserved solely through the photographic image.
ON PROCESS
In an era of AI-dominated media, these behind-the-scenes moments reclaim the "archaic gesture" of making. Rather than generating images through prompts, every still-life set and sculpture was built by hand, utilizing the artist’s own materials to create a physical reality that existed only for a single exposure.
The showroom became a temporary workshop, with the entire process unfolding directly behind the street-facing window. This placement transformed the private act of creation into a public event; pedestrians became accidental witnesses, using their own devices to capture fleeting sculptures that were destined to be dismantled or dissolve shortly after the shoot.
This tactile obsession is perhaps most visible in the construction of the cake sculptures. Using whipped cream and traditional Bauerngugelhupf, the process was driven by an almost childlike desire to manipulate raw texture and form. These high-speed, sensory interventions serve as a reminder of the fleeting nature of the physical world—once the photograph is taken, the sculpture vanishes, leaving the digital image as the only permanent record of its existence.