Rituals of our pagan ancestors, especially spring fertility rituals, included very open sexual actions that could be found obscene by our contemporaries. Nevertheless, for an ancient mind these actions among crops and forests were inalienable parts of life that consist of conception, birth, growth, senility and death. This series represent my rethinking of ancient rites in the modern conception, where sexual freedom devours the world, giving a birth to a new public morality, where immodest eroticism on the edge of pornography becomes a social standard as well as thousands years ago.

My Sexy Chernihiv is the homage to the small town of Chernihiv in Ukraine, where I lived for a half of my life. We tend to give some supernatural traits to our hometown that we have known for ages. So I asked my fellow artist to paint my black and white photographs in bright, often unnatural colors, having made them look unrealistic but at the same time conveying this mystery. The town becomes special, with its own spirit that one likes and always misses while being away. These series came out slightly erotic, almost innocent. Many beautiful people live here, and this combination of the old town mystery and young sexual spirit invites the viewer to join the surrealistic visual fantasy of a delighted photographer.
Bogdan Gulyay

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Bogdan Gulyay (born 1980) lives in Kyiv, Ukraine.