Sasha Arutyunova

Born in Moscow, raised in Florida
Based in Brooklyn, NY

Contact
s.arutyunova@gmail.com 
@sashafoto

Mailing List

Sasha Arutyunova uses photography to reveal emotional depth and expression in her encounters with the world around her. She brings a painterly eye to light and color, and a cinematic approach to narrative, drawing out the interior drama in the lives of the people she photographs.

Arutyunova is drawn to stories and environments that are rich in detail. For her, the camera is a way of finding order in complex circumstances, using formal qualities – color and shape, texture and line – to convey their underlying mood and atmosphere. She draws meaning from seemingly insignificant moments and gestures, singling them out and elevating them in order to speak to the lived experience of her subjects. Abstraction and metaphor also feature in her work as a way of expressing the political aspects of her subject matter with sensitivity and nuance.

The relationship between individual and their surroundings is a key element in Arutyunova’s work. Her photographs often focus on the hidden choreography of labour; on the grace and skill demonstrated by subjects performing the repetitive tasks of working life. Photographing in environments that are familiar to her subjects – places that reveal aspects of their personality – allows her to look beneath the surface of their lives, marrying a sense of outward ease and stability with a darker sensibility that hints at the weight of each existence. Through her work, Arutyunova seeks an emotional connection with her subjects and with the viewer, finding intimate spaces and encounters amidst the chaos of the everyday. Eugenie Shinkle



Editorial Clients

The Atlantic, Bloomberg Businessweek, British Journal of Photography, California Sunday Magazine, Document Journal, FT Weekend, Hemispheres, Monocle, National Geographic, Newsweek, The National, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Runner's World, Telegraph Magazine, TIME, TOPIC, Vice, The Washington Post, The Wire, WIRED, WSJ

Commercial Clients

Aesop, Airbnb, Apple, Concord Music Group, CRUNCH, David Zwirner, Expedia, French Institute Alliance Française
, Gagosian, Grace Farms Foundation, Hermès, Jobs Ohio, OURA, Make Room USA
, National Sawdust, New York University, Norwegian Air, Park Avenue Armory, Saddle Creek Records, SF Opera, T Brand, The Center for Faith & Work, WeTransfer



Awards & Exhibitions
2023 OMNEFEST: Nature, Villa Parco Bolazco
2023 Aperture Portfolio Prize Finalist
2022 True places never are, Museo Casa Giorgione, Transizioni
2021 When In Athens, The Humid
2019 Profound Movement, Houston Center for Photography
2019 American Photography 35
2019 Magenta Flash Forward
2018 Young Guns 16
2018 PDN Photo Annual
2018 Magenta Flash Forward
2018 American Photography 34 
2017 PDN's 30 
2017 THE FENCE


Interviews & Press
2022 Collector Daily
2019 It's Nice That
2019 PDN
2019 W Magazine
2019 Emmazed
2017 The New York Times II
2017 The New York Times I
2016 The Photographic Journal


© Sasha Arutyunova, All Rights Reserved
Portrait © Evgeniy Rein