Nikolai Endegor. Uncontemporary Photography

Holder of a Professional Doctorate in Engineering and author of monographs and academic papers on data analysis and automatic pattern recognition, Nikolai Endegor discovered photography in 2005. In an attempt to reveal the in-depth affinity between the animate and the inanimate, Endegor began exploring the mainstay of art photography – light painting. In his photographs, people and objects are equally inspired, inextricably interconnected, while the urban milieu resembles nature – flowing, refracting, and curving.

Seen through the photographer’s lens, architecture starts to breathe and move, inanimate objects take on erotic aspects and gain particular drawing power. This effect is due to all shapes pronouncedly veering towards rocailles, natural curves, and fractals – a tendency keenly observed by the artist: like begets like and multiplies endlessly. Endegor twists staircases into Möbius loops – perhaps the way they were originally conceived by the Art Nouveau architects. In his works, sensual sculptures of the late 18th century blossom with real flesh: the photographer picks up where the masters of the past left off.

Many of Endegor’s creations resemble studies in classical composition: time and time again he seems to be revisiting the fine art museums that so astounded him in his youth. The 21-century scholar keeps searching for an inner sense of Renaissance harmony. Countless laboratory-like optical experiments make his pictures pronouncedly musical: the play of light and shadow sets the rhythm, while lines turn into melody.