Heroin dreams

2020

Heroin Dreams explores the psychological residue of addiction beyond the body itself, focusing not on substance dependency directly, but on its presence within memory, childhood perception, and collective consciousness.

Drawing from recollections shaped by the post-Soviet heroin epidemic, the work evokes spectral figures suspended between visibility and disappearance — bodies moving through public space with an almost dreamlike detachment. These images emerge less as documentation than as emotional fragments inhabiting the space between memory and nightmare.

Approaching the subject from the position of witness rather than participant, the artist reflects on the anguish carried by families, particularly mothers attempting to save their children from selfdestruction. Through luminous color and visual tension, the work confronts the contradiction between beauty and trauma, revealing how collective grief continues to reverberate across generations.