Portraits that Breathe in Light: Raina Vlaskovska with an Exhibition in Ruse
June 24 – July 12, 2025
Opening: June 24, 2025, 6:00 PM
Art Gallery – Ruse will host an extraordinary journey into the limits of light, time and human presence – the photographic exhibition “Until the Light Consumes Us” by Raina Vlaskovska.
This is not just an exhibition – it is a visual narrative composed of images captured on the border between the visible and the invisible, between the instantaneous and the eternal. The photographs included in the exhibition were created in the period 2013 – 2024 in Bulgaria and Norway – two geographies that intertwine in the light, silence and atmospheric emotionality of each work.
All images are original and printed on metal or glass using an extremely rare analog process – wet collodion. This is a 19th-century technique that requires precision, patience and immersion – each photograph is unique and is born in a haze of ether, silver and light. The resulting portraits exude an almost sculptural density and delicate vulnerability, capturing not just faces but states of mind.
These images don’t just look at you – they contemplate you. They don’t tell stories with words, but with silence, with presence, with the carefully captured moment that echoes beyond the visible. They are still, but something vibrates inside them – like an echo of a thought or a breath in the dark.
The title of the exhibition – “Until the Light Swallows Us” – is inspired by the third album by the Norwegian black metal project Burzum – Hvis lyset tar oss (If the Light Takes Us). This reference is not accidental – the black and white aesthetic, dark lyrics and introverted philosophy of the album are reflected in Vlaskovska’s work. Her photographs share the same feeling of light as a limit, as a transition – as a way to get closer to the essence of things, even when it is already dissolving.
In this context, each photograph becomes a visual memento mori – a silent reminder of the transience of existence, but also of our aspiration to leave a mark of light – to be seen, to be remembered, to exist beyond time.
The project “Until the Light Consumes Us” is realized with the financial support of the National Fund for Culture under the “Dissemination” 2024 program and is part of a traveling exhibition that will also be presented in other cities in Bulgaria.
About the author
Raina Vlaskovska is a visual artist who works on the border between photography, philosophy and the poetry of the image. Born in Sofia, she graduated in “Photography” from the National Academy of Dramatic Arts and Film in 2007, and later continued her education in Norway, where in 2016 received her Master of Fine Arts degree from the Bergen Academy of Art and Design.
Her work is deeply personal, intimate and contemplative – she uses analogue techniques not only as a technical choice, but as a form of resistance to the fast pace of contemporary imaging. The wet collodion process with which Raina works requires time, concentration and absorption – the same qualities that her portraits exude.
Over the past two decades, her work has been exhibited in Bulgaria, Norway, the USA, India, Slovakia, Poland and Switzerland. The author is a member of Forbundet Frie Fotografer (FFF) – the Association of Free Photographers in Norway, and is the recipient of a number of prestigious awards.
