«Severance» was photographed in Kyoto in autumn 2025, on the grounds of a temple garden. The garden is seen through glass: branches, leaves, light, and architectural fragments lose their usual sharpness and begin to shift, as if the image were suspended between observation and abstraction. The glass is not a transparent boundary here, but an active surface that changes the very act of seeing.
The title refers to the idea of separation. A thin barrier stands between the artist and nature: it connects the gaze to the garden while also distancing it from direct contact. This state is central to Lola Graham’s practice, which often turns to reflections, refractions, unstable equilibrium, and visual fluidity. In «Severance», the landscape does not appear as a clear view, but as displaced perception — soft, unstable, and asking the viewer to slow down.
The work was shot on a Canon digital camera with minimal subsequent color correction. For the artist, it was important to preserve the natural state of the light and the optical distortion that occurred at the moment of shooting through glass. The image does not seek an event or dramatic action; it holds a pause, a silence, and the fragile boundary between reality and the way it is perceived.
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About the Author
Lola Graham
Lola Graham (Lola Mirmuminova) is a photographer and interdisciplinary artist. She was born in Korolyov, Moscow Region, and lives and works in Moscow. She came to photography after four years of medical studies, gradually leaving a predetermined career path to devote herself to image-making.
Her practice is shaped by three key ideas: minimalism, deconstruction, and unstable equilibrium. Lola is drawn to images that do not reveal themselves immediately: reflections, distortions, deep shadows, tense poses, and states suspended between familiar reality and a subtle sense of surrealism. Dreams, shifts in perception, and moments when reality seems to change form are central to her visual language.
Alongside photography, Lola works with analogue collage, printing, scanning, layout, text, and hands-on interventions into the photographic image. She is interested in glass, mirrors, water, lenses, textures, and traces of the hand — elements that allow a photograph to exist not only as a digital file, but also as a material object. In her work, the image often balances between precise observation and the feeling of a fragile, almost bodily surface.
At the center of her artistic inquiry are the body, skin, memory, human relationships, and the gradual erosion of contact between people in digital environments. Lola works with states of tension, fragility, distance, inner intensity, and transition. Her projects explore how the body interacts with space, surface, another body, and itself.
Main Exhibitions
Lola has been working in photography since 2019; her turn toward fine art photography and exhibition practice began in 2023. Her projects include «Unoccupied», «Carne», «(dis)placement», «Lightgate», and the forthcoming multimedia project on dreams, «Obsidian». Her works have been presented in group and online exhibitions including «THROUGH THE WALLS (AND BACK PT. 2)» in Barcelona, «SATORI» at Still Art Foundation/Moscow Multimedia Art Museum, «(Un)Written», «STREETS», «Happiness», «ARRIVAL», «Whispers in the Shadows», and «A New Feeling». Her projects and works have also appeared in media including Flanelle Magazine, F-Stop Magazine, Juliet Art Magazine, Goddessarts Magazine, The Kult Talk, Medium, and Time Out.
