In her new series of self-portraits, Julia Shanaytsa explores how protection can become isolation in today’s hyperconnected world. Her images capture quiet, intimate moments: the artist wraps herself in fabric, clutches a pillow. Her body disappears into the space around her - only a hand, afoot, or a glimpse of her face remains, as anonymous as the objects in the room. Circular patterns appear throughout - restless, repetitive, like intrusive thoughts that won’t stop circling. They represent a private chaos, where thoughts and emotions blend and confuse perception.

These shapes also speak to the digital noise of daily life: feeds, alerts, endless messages. Like soap bubbles, they flash and vanish, leaving no trace but a sense of overload. In this way, Shanaytsa links the personal and the social.

An additional layer of distance is created by melted plastic placed between the image and the viewer. It doesn’t fully conceal but subtly distorts - becoming a metaphor for protection: fragile, barely perceptible, yet undeniably present. This is how the artist envisions modern psychological defense - delicate but necessary.Despite the familiar, domestic setting, the works convey a profound sense of solitude,disconnection, and an unfulfilled longing for closeness.

Shanaytsa shows how, in the contemporary world, a person constructs their own cocoon - a space suspended between withdrawal and dissolution, between the desire for protection and the risk of losing one self.