Natalie Karpushenko Animates the Natural World

A look at one of Natalie Karpushenko's photographs is enough to spark a childlike sense of awe for the world and our place in it. The naked body is portrayed with primal innocence, “I think the female body is perfect. I don't see it as a sexual object. For me it’s just pure beauty and art,” she shares through patchy wifi from an Uluwatu cafe near where she now lives.

Her perspective on nakedness is refreshingly simple and hard to argue with; “like all animals, we are naked. We don't see them wearing clothes.” Framing figures to appear almost mythical invites the viewer to see the human form in a different light. Sirens peek through lilies half submerged and forest nymphs writhe tangled among tree roots.

“I can observe it and see different angles and look at a body like I would a tree, it’s the same, you know.” Seeing trees and bodies as no different is apparent in how she captures people embedded within the landscape, not separate from it. “Our states how we are born and we are all born from the water. I think we all kind of belong to the water and the ocean. I guess I'm just trying to translate this sense that we are all together and we are all a big family; the ocean, animals, nature, the trees.”

Karpushenko’s ability to improvise when there are cracks in the original plan seems to be where the magic seeps into her photographs. “I plan things when it's right and then I just give into the flow. Maybe another idea can come to my mind, you know, because I will be in the moment. You can plan things, but there's so many things that can change.”

The same goes for the weather. Embracing less-than-ideal weather results in some of her most captivating imagery. Her viral video of two women circling near the water's surface is one of them — rain droplets dapple inky water and adds a painterly Van Gogh blur to the whole scene.

There’s a unity between people and the environment in her photographs that alludes to an animistic and spiritual worldview. “I want people to feel beautiful and to feel that sense that we are all together here and we are not alone and yeah we’re all part of something big.” Adding “I also believe in energy, so I try to capture certain energies during photoshoots,” making sure to photograph while in a “positive and present state” is done with the consideration that the viewer can feel this energy within the photograph. She gives the example of the picture where women lay curled up in womb-like geological formations — a photograph she received “many messages about.”

“This photograph is very special to me” reflects Karpushenko, “I think because it's just not like random people, it's most of my friends and the friends from different countries, and they have a very special story and relationship with each woman in this picture and I don't know, to me, it kind of has some power in it, because it's real. It's not just a model who arrived there to pose for me for one hour. It’s people I have a story with and who really wanted to be part of it.”

The monk-like concentration required of her friends to endure early mornings, jellyfish stings and freezing cold water she feels adds another layer of this ‘energy’ to her work. “They would just relax and meditate and not really move. I think that's special. And yeah, I think people can feel it when they look at it.”

This ‘go with the flow’ approach is one she takes with her when photographing animals in the wild too. Humpback whales, water buffalo and whale sharks are just some of the muses she’s waited patiently to capture while peeking through the viewfinder. As staged as these scenes might look, each one is a wild encounter with a story. “With the whales, you cannot control how you shoot. It’s their world, so you cannot really plan things. And the buffalo, they need to be in the right mood to be willing to connect with us.”Ethical in her approach to working in the wild, Karpushenko takes precautions to avoid disturbing animals, aiming to interact only if they’re receptive. “We try to make sure they're okay and they want contact. Otherwise it can be dangerous. The same with the whales. If the whales are looking for contact, they will come to you. You don't need to chase them. I think it's like this with all kinds of animals.”

Disillusioned by plastic waste along the coastlines she explores while shooting, Karpushenko amplifies these realities in her work. In Tonga, she incorporated plastic found on the beaches into her work. “I would put a big piece of plastic on me and then the baby sperm whales would look at the plastic, because it looks interesting in the water—like a big jellyfish. They would come straight to me, because they’d be curious.” This doesn’t stop her from simultaneously representing beauty and with good reason. “Most people just avoid negativity — they don't want to look at it, so my idea was to create something beautiful so people would want to look at it, but also with deeper meaning.”

For Karpushenko, making beautiful pictures that address the world’s plastic crisis has an important purpose beyond beauty and palatability alone. “I think everything should come from the matter of love and with love. So then you can really touch the hearts and explain things better, rather than when you go from aggression. It doesn't really reach in the right way, I think.”

On developing her personal style, Karpushenko believes in the virtues of tunnel vision. When asked what wisdom she’d share with an aspiring photographer, she advises “don't think about how other people will react to it if you are passionate about it and if you like it, that's the most important thing.”

Outside of her own childhood passions, Karpushenko draws inspiration from “old paintings more than other people’s photographs” and in particular, renaissance paintings and its flying angels. The colour treatment of old films from the eighties and sixties, along with the underwater scene and Juliet’s angel wings in Baz Lurhman’s Romeo and Juliet (1996).

Spiritual motifs like clouds and angel wings within nature reflect increasing interest in the zeitgeist toward animism. A boon of well-being in a time where society has all but divorced from nature, Karpushenko’s work is reflective of growing sentiment of the need to reconnect with it. It’s a view that’s been the foundation of Indigenous belief for millennia; that the plant world is not without a soul like Darwin alluded to, but animated with spirit — and to repeat Karpusheko’s words, “we are all a big family; the ocean, animals, nature, the trees.”