Ophelia, a character created by William Shakespeare in his play ‘Hamlet’, is a popular source of inspiration in Fine Arts, especially in painting. Covered in flowers, the pale Ophelia drowned in water to forget the selfish prince of Denmark. Mira Nedyalkova certainly knows this story and the different paintings inspired by it. Indeed, the Bulgarian photographer was first a painter herself. Frustrated by her modelling experience, she decided, in 2007, to make her own photography and self-portraits, unleash her creativity. Soon, she replaced painting by photography, but she kept her love for dramatic scenes and Fine Arts inspiration.
The erotic portraits of her friends and herself are breathtaking as the liquid elements often symbolize oblivion, which was the case for Ophelia. We can forget everything while looking her photography and become frozen in her world. At the same time, they fill us with a mysterious dynamism. We are born of our mother’s water, and water is keeping us alive, along with all forms of life on our planet. A powerful symbol of creation, it has fascinated artists for centuries with its lethal power. The ethereal heroines of Mira Nedyalkova are not only Shakespearian, they are also floating between the worlds of lust and purity, life and death, peace and energy.
