Tanja Muravskaja (b. 1978) is a photo artist with Ukrainian roots. She studied photography at the Academy of Arts and University of Westminster, Muravskaja mainly works in the portrait format. In her work, she works mainly with topics of identity and nationhood. As an artist, Muravskaja has been adept at advocating for a number of social flashpoints, such as a series of portraits that shine a critical eye on the new nationalism that exploded in Estonia in the previous decade.
“Desire”, a work from 2005, examines ads for luxury products that are common in glossy magazines. Models posing with cut-outs try to imitate the poses and facial expressions seen in ads. The fact is that just like the luxury products are out of reach for most readers of fashion magazines, attempts to align oneself to the ideals of beauty intermediated by the media are also hollow.
