FIELD STUDY OF UKRAINIAN EROTIC

"FIELD STUDY OF UKRAINIAN EROTIC Gomma Get Published 2025 | First Prize Winner Published by Gomma Books in a strictly limited first edition of 100 copies. Bogdan Gulyay’s work stands out as singular and uncompromising, marked by rare courage and resilience. With a sharp eye, he peels back the layers of society, dismantling stereotypes and challenging perceptions at every turn. He lingers on the absurd, the uncommon and the misunderstood, echoing Roger Ballen’s words: “My best pictures are the ones I don’t understand.” Bogdan’s vision resonates deeply with this statement, embodying a distinctly Ukrainian spirit: bold, unyielding and resilient. There is also an omnipresent undercurrent in Gulyay’s photography: a search for connection and authenticity, a delicate fabric woven between bodies, identities and encounters. As Laura Estelle Barmwoldt explores in her accompanying text, A Delicate Fabric Called Kinship: A Study of Reciprocal Authenticity, Gulyay’s photographs examine the fragile relationship between the self and the world around it. Unchallenged authenticity is the state of mind we yearn for, an equilibrium between internal self-definition and external validation. Differences fade, curiosity becomes an exploration of untold desires, and the familiar opens onto something wider. As Bogdan himself says: “We wake up to the sounds of explosions of air defense at night and continue to live, clinging to reality with the remnants of sanity on the fourth year of this war.” He continues: “You discussed projects on a new exhibition with a fellow artist yesterday. Tomorrow he’s in the army, and instead of photos from the studio his Instagram now shows pictures of weapons and army life.” His photographs, rather than imposing meaning, drift alongside the nonsense of reality, recalling Pavlo Makov’s words: “You’ll never save the world with art, but it will help you survive your life.” Field Study of Ukrainian Erotic is ultimately a book about freedom, absurdity, intimacy and survival. A deeply personal body of work created in a country where reality itself has become increasingly difficult to comprehend. This is Bogdan Gulyay at his most uncompromising: raw, strange, tender, provocative and completely alive. Selected as the First Prize winner of Gomma Get Published 2025, Field Study of Ukrainian Erotic joins the Gomma Books catalogue as an exceptionally limited photographic publication, continuing the publisher’s commitment to distinctive, independent and fearless photographic voices."