Kostya, 2003

Sergey Bratkov is a Ukrainian realist photographer. Bratkov's work is mostly human subjects, however the portraits are far from glamour shots or smiling faces. He emphasizes the parts of human life that we don't like to be seen, but are nevertheless there. Bratkov also does black and white landscapes that have a theme of loneliness in either abandoned objects, or lonely gnarled trees such as in his collection Cherry Orchard which is a part of the permanent collection at the Pinchuk Art Centre. Bratkov's art tries to capture the cold, dark, sickly, even grotesque side of the world. His photograph Portrait of Father shows a man as none of us would like to be seen by the world, but is his reality. Although most of his photographs are in color, the colors are mostly black and white with one other color such as red or blue. All of the photographs are taken with cold lighting, and rarely natural sunlight.