Ellen Sheidlin, known as Sheidlina, builds staged images around vivid color, performance and unexpected transformations. This selection includes a contorted figure, a watermelon deer arranged as a road scene, and a Kremlin transformed into a puzzle. These were imaginative artworks, not documentary records of the events their surfaces seem to suggest. By placing herself inside the images, she made the self-portrait part of the idea rather than simply its subject.
Who is Sheidlina?
Her official biography describes a practice that began with photographic work and expanded into painting and other forms. She uses the term Survirtualism for her artistic language. It is helpful to understand that as the artist’s own description, rather than a requirement for interpreting every image.
The photographs in this selection belong to a staged, imaginative practice. Styling, objects, performance and image-making work together. A scene should therefore be approached as an artwork, not as documentary evidence that an unusual event happened exactly as it appears.
The scenes invite readings about social-media life, vegetarianism and emotional distress. A watermelon shaped into an animal, for instance, brings food and the idea of roadkill into an unsettling visual relationship. Those associations belong to the images; a staged expression or pose cannot diagnose the artist’s mental health. Her account of moving beyond conventional selfies explains how those elaborate scenarios developed.
In an interview with Kaltblut magazine, she says of her work:
"I realized that the main interest for my fans to follow me was my face. My selfies collected the greatest number of likes and comments and then I decided that the best way to preserve and multiply interest in me is to add myself to my idea. Today, normal selfies are the most unvalued photos, the public always waits for something unusual, they are absolutely not satisfied with just a photo. Everything sooner or later goes out of fashion: style, colours, even memes, but an idea will never become mainstream, it is eternal."
Asked about the relationship between her character and her life, she replied:
"For me it was never a problem, in general I'm very similar to the character that I created. Internet is a part of my life, especially now, when I've created my own exhibition, where everyone can take pictures in the style of my instagram with interactive exhibits that repeat my photos."
The exhibition she describes extended the images into physical space, letting visitors step into settings related to her photographs. That changes the relationship between artwork and audience. Instead of only scrolling past a scene, a visitor can enter a constructed version of it and make a new image. The dated posts below show individual works from 2016–2020, a period in which her elaborate self-portraits drew a large online following.
How the familiar becomes unsettling
Look first for the most recognizable element: a face, an appliance or a familiar domestic space. Then notice what disrupts it. An unexpected position or an exaggerated visual relationship can make something ordinary feel difficult to place, even when its individual parts remain easy to identify.
The vivid palette can make that encounter playful, while the pose or setting introduces a more ambiguous mood. Those responses are open to interpretation. They do not establish a psychological condition in the artist or the person represented.
For a lighter transformation of household surroundings, explore Helga Stentzel’s everyday-object characters. Jono Dry’s graphite drawings offer another useful comparison: realistic features lead into an imagined atmosphere, but without Sheidlina’s saturated color. Seeing the approaches together shows how surreal effects can grow from composition as well as from an unusual subject.
Dain Yoon’s face paintings create another kind of self-portrait, allowing real and painted features to interact. Her work makes the body itself part of the image-making surface.
Credits and further reading: Instagram.
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