3rd Wave of Inspiration
Since 2003
Pixel Ptushka is a talented pixel artist and manga creator. While I cannot appreciate her manga skills as I am completely out of that zone (but you shall), her pixel art is a pure pleasure for the eyes. The cities series is my favourite and I wish to see more of her pixel art soon.
In March 2020, Chicago-based Leah Gardner picked up a paintbrush as a distraction during the global pandemic. What started as an experiment soon blossomed into a passion for oil painting. After months of trial and error, Leah developed her skills and started selling her work.
By next year, Leah went full-time into painting. Locally, her work is displayed in area businesses, shown in Chicago art fairs, and hangs in private collections, all reflections of her unique and emotive style.
In her free time, Leah likes taking walks with her dog, doing some planting, and reading fiction novels. Her story testifies that art can indeed thrive during tumultuous times.
The “Erased Reality” photo project is a visual meditation on memory and perception. In this series, Sasha Mingia reimagines the human concept of reality by erasing familiar details and leaving only fragments that serve as a bridge between the visible and the remembered.
“Reality is a ghost. It’s like having a dream in which very familiar places and events from the past are dreamed deserted. You remember all the participants in the event, but you don’t see them anymore. What really happened to you changes to an alternative version, where there is neither you nor witnesses”
Mingia’s work explores the boundaries between what we see and how we interpret it. Photographs taken in the 2010s transform scenes of the past into enigmatic spaces, where the disappearance of elements becomes a metaphor for forgetting, loss, and transformation.
The story captured in these images unfolds in abandoned territories in the early 2010s — in Abkhazia and a defunct 1990s Moscow amusement park on the cusp of reconstruction.
Inspired by Sasha’s reflections on the role of memory in creating images and interpretation as a bearer of truth, the project “Erased Reality” was assembled in 2022 from her archive of 2010s-era photographs. Each image invites viewers to ask themselves: how much of reality remains when its contours are erased?
Sasha Mingia’s project is not only a visual experience but also an invitation to a dialogue about how the phenomenon of gaslighting shapes our memory and perception of the past.
The series is available on Sasha’s website and features other projects showcasing her unique artistic vision.
Sasha Mingia lives and works in Paris (born 1984 in Moscow). She began her career as an artist in 2020 after a long career in design. Sasha holds a BA in Graphic Design from the British Higher School of Design (2009) and an MA in Museology from the RSUH (2007). Sasha’s interdisciplinary practice blends clay, painting, and sewing techniques, spanning sculpture, photography, and digital art. Her work explores the connection between personal and social stigmas and transformations based on the convergence of the psychic and the spoken. Her work has been featured in various publications, including ‘Sasha Mingia’ in Original Magazine, London (2024), ‘Our Talent’s Portfolio’,
project × (2024), and ‘100 Artworks curated by Rebecca Wilson’ (2023).
