VARVARA UHLIK

SCULPTURE & INSTALLATION:

PLAY GROUND II
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LYOH
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PLAY GROUND
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SWAN
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DIGITAL (AFTER)
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PLAYLAND
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PHOTOGRAPHY:

SUNSHINE, HOW ARE YOU?
^(2023-2024)
SLAV GAZE
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about

Varvara Uhlik (b. 1997, Dnipro, Ukraine) is a visual artist based in London. Rooted in her personal history and the landscapes of her upbringing in Eastern Ukraine, her work explores the inherited complexities of post-Soviet identity. Through photography, video, sculpture, and installation, Varvara navigates themes of generational trauma, cultural memory, and the enduring shadow of Russian imperialism on both individual lives and the wider socio-political fabric of Eastern Europe.

Central to her practice is the act of digital archiving — a means of piecing together fractured memories and inaccessible geographies. Since the 2014 occupation of Crimea, and more acutely during the ongoing full-scale war, Varvara’s connection to formative places and people has been mediated through fading family albums, online fragments, and pixelated remnants. Her photographs confront the tension between the permanence of digital records and the physical absence they represent, inviting a nuanced reflection on belonging, loss, and the slipperiness of memory — particularly in an age when even memory can be fabricated by AI, blurring the boundaries between truth and fabrication.

In her photographic work, she reworks personal family archives alongside newly constructed scenes, to create visual narratives that move between the imagined and the remembered. In her video and installation practice, she incorporates found imagery, online sources, and mapping tools such as Google Maps to further examine themes of displacement, reconstruction, and the digital mediation of memory. Across media, scenes of folkloric domesticity, intimate rituals, and imagined returns create spaces where rupture and repair coexist, and personal and collective histories intertwine.

In 2026, Varvara was selected as Foam Talent 2026–2027 Runner-up by Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, and nominated by PhotoIreland as a FUTURES Photography Talent. A year before, she was selected for New Contemporaries 2025–2026, recognising her as one of the artists shaping the future of British art. In 2024, she was named one of the British Journal of Photography's Ones to Watch. Varvara has also been a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors since 2025, having received the Gilbert Bayes Award.

Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at The Sunday Painter, London (2025); Photo Élysée Museum, Switzerland (2025); European Photography Month, Tokyo (2025); MIA Milan Photo Fair, Italy (2024, 2025); Encontros da Imagem, Portugal (2024); and Liquida Photofestival, Italy (2025). Her work has appeared in publications such as The Guardian, Beaux Arts Magazine, Photoworks, Riga Photography Biennial 2025, Der Greif and LensCulture, among others.

cv

Born 1997 in Dnipro, Ukraine
Based in London, UK

EDUCATION
2023-2025 MFA Fine Art: Media, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London, UK (Distinction)
2019-2023 BA Design: Photography, Royal Academy of Art (KABK), The Hague, Netherlands
2016-2019 BA: Arts and Media Management, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2026
Sunshine, How Are You?, Fotofestival, Lenzburg Castle, Lenzburg, Switzerland
Sunshine, How Are You?, Artphilein Foundation, Lugano, Switzerland

2025
Lyoh, The Door, Palmer Gallery, London, UK
Sunshine, How Are You?, Liquida Photofestival, Polo del '900, Turin, Italy

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026
(Upcoming) Basel Social Club, Art Fair, Basel, Switzerland
(Upcoming) New Contemporaries 2026, MIMA (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art), Middlesbrough, UK
Gen Z. Shaping a New Gaze, Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF), Frankfurt, Germany
New Contemporaries 2026, South London Gallery, London, UK

2025
The Flesh of Space, The Sunday Painter, London, UK
Gen Z. Shaping a New Gaze, Photo Élysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
SEEEU, European Photography Month in Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Rebirth, Spilka Paris & Honchar Museum, Galerie Cinema, Paris, France
MIA Photo Fair Milano, Irinox Award, Milan, Italy

2024
Encontros da Imagem, International Photography and Visual Arts Festival, Braga, Portugal
Der Greif: Arles Edition, Rencontres d'Arles, portfolio screening, ParisBerlin Fotohaus, Arles, France
MIA Photo Fair Milano, ‘Welcome To My Unknown’ exhibition, Milan, Italy

2023
REGENERATE: Noorderlicht International Photo Festival, Groningen, Netherlands
Public Space Exhibition 2023, Altona, Hamburg, Germany
Free Range, AOP Student Awards, Truman Brewery, London, UK

SELECTED PRESS & PUBLICATIONS

2026
Foam Magazine #68: Talent Issue
Art Monthly #495, April 2026, New Contemporaries Review by Adam Heardman
The Telegraph, ‘I’ve just seen the future of British art’ by Alastair Sooke
Wallpaper, ‘Who are the emerging artists to know in the UK now?’ by Hannah Silver

2025
Beaux Arts Magazine, Issue n°498, Paris, France
Gen Z, Un Nouveau Regard, Éditions Textuel, co-edition with Photo Élysée
Der Greif: Issue 18, Curated by Hank Willis Thomas
The Riga Photography Biennial, NEXT 2025 Publication
The Guardian, SEEEU Article
Japan Times
Lula Japan
Vanity Fair Italia: What Echoes Remain
The Guardian, LensCulture Article
La Stampa
ArtFrame Magazine

2024
British Journal of Photography, ‘Ones To Watch 2024’ Issue, Text by Ravi Gosh, London, UK
Der Greif: Artist Feature and BlogYogurt Magazine, Italy De Standaard, Daily Newspaper, Belgium
2023
Photography+, Photoworks, Issue #20, Graduate Issue 2023, Brighton, UK
British Journal of Photography, Paris Photo: Carte Blanche, Article

AWARDS & GRANTS
2026
Foam Talent 2026, Runner-up, Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam
FUTURES Photography | Nominated by PhotoIreland
Mark Tanner Sculpture Award (shortlist)

2025
New Contemporaries 2025-2026
Gilbert Bayes Award, Royal Society of Sculptors
Kenneth Armitage Young Sculptor Prize, The Kenneth Armitage Foundation
Clare Winsten Memorial Award, UCL
Sarabande: The Lee Alexander McQueen Foundation Emerging Artist Grant LensCulture New Visions Award (finalist)

2024
PARIS PHOTO (finalist), Carte Blanche
Belfast Photo Festival (shortlist), awarded “Highly Commended”
Athens Photo Festival (shortlist)
PhMuseum Photography Grant (shortlist)

2023
PARIS PHOTO (finalist), Carte Blanche

TALKS & WORKSHOPS
2026
Interview, Meet the artist, South London Gallery, London, UK
Interview, Personal Notes, gowithYamo, London, UK

2025
Press Conference, SEEEU, WPÜ SHINJUKU, Tokyo, Japan
Workshop, Imaginary Spaces: Storytelling Through Photography, Art Block, South London Gallery, London, UK
Workshop, Bookbinding Basics, Art Block, South London Gallery, London, UK
Workshop, Image Collage: Making New Meanings, Art Block, South London Gallery, London, UK
Workshop, CTRL +C, CTRL V, Cell Project Space x Blackhorse Activators, London, UK
Workshop, The Looms, Cell Project Space x Blackhorse Activators, London, UK
2024
Interview, Canal180: Memory and identity in the shadow of history. 180 Meets, Braga, Portugal

LIMITED EDITIONS AVAILABLE
Gertrude | AucArt

EMAIL: VARVARA.VU@GMAIL.COM

INSTAGRAM: @VARAVARKA