Inna Etuvgi - art photographer and digital artist
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Inna Etuvgi is a Swedish-Chukchi art photographer and digital artist, internationally recognised as an Arte Laguna Prize finalist (Venice) and a recipient of the Swedish Arts Grants Committee grant. Born in a remote Arctic village in Chukotka and trained in technical cybernetics, she began her artistic practice in 2020 and has since exhibited across Europe — in Venice, London, Barcelona, Palermo, and San Marino.
Etuvgi lives with aphantasia — she cannot see images in her mind. Her camera and AI serve as extensions of her visual imagination, allowing her to create what she cannot picture internally. Through macro photography she enters the hidden worlds of mosses, lichens, and dewdrops; through digital art she gives form to psychological states and inner archetypes. Both are rooted in a deep sensitivity shaped by her Chukchi upbringing — an instinct to feel into every living thing.
As art critic Tabish Khan notes: "Her work transports us to other worlds — both real and imaginary, but always in harmony with nature."
ARTIST STATEMENT
My artistic practice is shaped by two defining elements: aphantasia, the inability to form mental images, and my indigenous Chukchi heritage. For me, art functions first and foremost as a tool for cognition. I can't see images in my mind — my inner screen is off. So the camera and the generative algorithm function as prostheses for my visual imagination, allowing me to find, create, and finally see what cannot exist in my mind's eye. Through macro photography I immerse myself in the micro-worlds of mosses, lichens, and dewdrops, entering a quiet dialogue with nature shaped by my Chukchi upbringing, where attention to the smallest living sign was a matter of survival. Through AI-assisted digital art I explore what the lens cannot capture — inner archetypes and psychological states beneath the visible surface. I think of these digital works as fine art memes, images that function simultaneously as visual experience and carriers of cultural meaning. What connects both is something I carry from childhood — the ability to feel into what I observe, to become the drop, the moss, the figure in the portrait, while keeping my own awareness intact.
Solo Exhibition
2023 — Macro Photography as Another Way to See the World, Persgården Galleri, Visingsö, Sweden
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024/2025 - Women and Art- 22, Automotive, Centro Fiorina, Republic of San Marino
2024 - Women are .. Art, Love, Life, Strangeness, Palazzo Graziani Cultural Center, Repubblica di San Marino
2024 — The Land of Silence, Musa Pavilion, Venice, Italy
2024 — Untouchable, ADmore Gallery & Studio Lo Verso, Venice, Italy
2024 — Boomer Art Prize Finalists: The Dark Side, Boomer Gallery, London, UK
2024 — Woman’s Essence Show, Valid World Hall, Barcelona, Spain
2024 — The New Artist – 6th Edition, Boomer Gallery, London, UK
2023 — Arte Laguna Prize Finalists, Arsenale of Venice, Italy
2023 — Photography in the Visual Culture, Centro Internazionale di Fotografia, Palermo, Italy
2021 — Smeraldo, Sant’Eufemia Art Gallery, Venice, Italy
Honors, Grants & Awards
2024 — Longlisted, Visual Art Open 2025 (UK)
2024 — Finalist, Boomer Art Prize – 2nd Edition
2023 — Artist Grant, Swedish Arts Grants Committee
2022 — Finalist, Arte Laguna Prize 16
2021, 2023, 2024 — Arte Laguna Prize, Artist in the Spotlight
Selected Press & Publications
2024 — Jönköping Posten — “Inna kan inte se när hon blundar” (Jan 11)
2023 — Jönköping Posten — “Lavar blir till Aliens i Innas makrolins” (Aug 22)
2023 — Photography in the Visual Culture 22/23, Serradifalco Editore
2021 — New York Style Guide — “Discover Sant’ Eufemia Gallery and the Emerald Exhibition”
2020 — Cover feature, Marika Magazine (Issue 468 – December), Kavyar
