What we store in our minds shapes our identity—without memories, it is difficult to define who we truly are. The “Oblivion” series is an attempt to visually capture the experience of losing a part of oneself and the feeling of a blurred existence.

Seven years ago, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, which had a long-lasting impact on my ability to recall the past. I lost fifteen years of my life, and in their place, only fragments remained—flickering, incomplete images that my mind tried to piece together through confabulations, adding elements that had never existed. This experience is difficult to describe in words, so I express it through images.

Each portrait reveals a different part of a person—nothing is fully visible in its entirety. What we see is merely a fragment, an elusive reflection of something that is no longer fully accessible.

The face I photograph is not my own—and that is a deliberate choice. Losing one’s identity comes with a feeling of detachment from one’s own body, moments when the reflection in the mirror seems to belong to someone else. I wanted to convey this state—the sense of distance from oneself. Another person became the medium of my story because when the past fades in the mind, we might as well exist in someone else’s skin.

This series was also inspired by memories of my grandmother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. I remember how she would stand in front of a mirror and fail to recognize herself—she did not know who the person staring back at her was. That image stayed with me forever and became part of my own search for answers: What remains of a person when their past disappears?

Do we still exist if we no longer have access to our own memories? And if so, where—within the heart, the mind, in our gestures? “Oblivion” is a reflection on an existence suspended between what once was and what has dissolved into an undefined void.

Kamila J Gruss
02.02.2025 Słupsk

Love is not always gentle and tender. Sometimes, it turns into madness, obsession, a ritual that consumes identity. “Bad Romance” is a story of a relationship that takes the form of addiction – hypnotic, destructive, inevitable.

This work was inspired by Lady Gaga and her iconic song “Bad Romance”, where passion is not a fairy-tale harmony but a dark game of dominance, desire, and destruction. The wig, so characteristic of her image, becomes something more – a symbol of a mask, an illusion behind which emptiness hides. The face disappears, leaving only the body – exposed, subjected to the gaze, yet stripped of individuality, as if the feeling had taken away what was most essential.
Black and white enhance the drama of this narrative – emotions, like light and shadow, balance between extremes. It is the tension between passion and losing control, between longing and dissolving oneself in another.

“Bad Romance” is a vision of fascination that defies convention. It is a story of desire that blinds, bonds that consume, and an identity that gradually fades in this fire.

Kamila J Gruss
02.02.2025 Słupsk

After the immense loss of love, one is left bare before their own inner self. There is only the body—fragile, hunched, closed in on itself, seeking solace in a place where another person no longer exists.
This diptych is a record of an intimate journey—a return to oneself after the dissolution of a relationship, after departure, after an emptiness that cannot easily be filled. A curled-up silhouette, the tense line of the back, a hand touching its own skin—gestures that express both pain and the gradual process of embracing solitude. In these moments of silence, when the external world fades into insignificance, the healing begins.
The interplay of light and shadow highlights the ambiguity of this experience—suffering intertwines with relief, loss with rediscovery, emptiness with the slow construction of a new kind of closeness—this time, with oneself.
It is a story of the body as the final refuge of the soul. A reminder that after loss, tenderness can still be found—within oneself, in breath, in the simple act of being. Because true solace is not found outside, but in the deepest corners of one’s own existence.

Kamila J Gruss
02.02.2025 Słupsk

“Intimate Landscapes” presents the human body resting on dry, lifeless earth, referencing the ancient maxim: “From dust you came, and to dust you shall return.” The earth is depicted as a primordial mother—both the cradle of life and its final resting place, a space to which we inevitably return.

Through these images, I explore the dual nature of human existence. The human body becomes a metaphor for transience—we are born from the earth, draw strength from it, and ultimately merge back into it.

The culmination of the cycle is an image where the human body ceases to be a separate entity—it becomes rock, landscape, a part of the natural order. In this moment, the boundary between what is organic and inorganic dissolves, and transience takes on an almost cosmic dimension. The body does not merely return to the earth; it becomes the earth itself—a timeless element of the landscape, a testament to the cyclical nature of existence, a reminder of the inevitable return to the source.

This cycle is a reflection on the inescapable fate of human existence, its fragility, and the inseparable bond between humans and nature—a bond from which we emerge and to which we are constantly drawn.

Kamila J Gruss

The “Incomplete” triptych is a visual reflection on human deficiencies—those that arise from trauma and those that shape our identity. The inspiration for this series came from a lecture by Robert Rutkowski on individuals marked by a difficult childhood, people who are internally “incomplete,” driven by instincts because they never learned to manage their emotions in a healthy and conscious way.

The chrysalis and its lateral mutations serve as a visual metaphor for this state—transition, transformation, but also a kind of entrapment in an unfinished form. I distort the body to bring out what is most human—its structure, physicality, and at the same time, a hidden beauty that often becomes visible only upon prolonged observation.

Using a cosmic metaphor, one could say that these photographs represent a certain retrogradation in nude photography—an apparent reversal of classical beauty standards, portraying the body in a “grotesque,” deformed manner. Yet, the longer we look at them, the more we begin to perceive their harmony and aesthetic quality.

A key reference for this deformation is also Freud’s concept of the life drive (Eros). It pushes us toward physicality, toward an instinctual need for closeness, even when we lack reason, reflection, and self-awareness. In the three frames that compose this cycle, the body is symbolically distorted—the lower part of the figure is accentuated, almost animalistic in its weight and mass, while the absence of a head highlights the lost element of rationality. It is a metaphor for those guided by instinct, unable to fully govern themselves—incomplete, yet beautiful in their imperfection.

This is a story about the body, the soul, and absence—but also about transformation and the possibility of rediscovering oneself.

Kamila J Gruss

Mieczysław Jastrun
Funeral

The coffin—a furnace of fire and dust,
Its lid but air, so clear, so thin,
And smoke from a man, once flesh, once trust,
Swept through the chimney of history’s sin.

How shall we honor the death you met,
How follow your funeral’s fleeting trace?
A handful of ash with no grave is set,
Drifting between the sky and space.

How can we lay a wreath so bright
On a grave not carved in earth or stone?
An ark that vanishes into night,
Lost where the flames of war have blown.

No solemn guns will bow in sound,
No coffin lowered to the deep,
Only the air—its light unbound—
Marks where the nameless dead now sleep.

And silence rises, vast and wide,
Like a banner crushed beneath the fight,
In choking smoke where corpses hide,
And in a scream—crucified.

Kamila J Gruss

“Fading Presence” explores the fragility of perception and the fleeting nature of identity. The interplay between clarity and distortion prompts the viewer to reflect on the boundaries between the visible and the hidden. Through this work, I seek to capture the ephemeral essence of existence, where presence dissolves into ambiguity, challenging our perception of reality and the self.

Kamila J Gruss
02.02.2025 Słupsk

“Nude with a Beauty Mark” is a reflection on femininity—delicate, yet filled with tension and inner strength. It is an attempt to capture beauty that does not lie in perfection but in what is individual and unique. The beauty mark, a subtle flaw on the skin, takes on special significance here—it emphasizes uniqueness, reminding us that authenticity holds greater value than an ideal, which is nothing more than an empty illusion.

The inspiration came from the work of Andrzej Wróblewski, in which the human body undergoes transformation, suspended between humanity and objecthood, frozen in a form that teeters between immobilization and emotional tension. This relationship is also present in my photograph—a figure curled into itself, withdrawn, introspective, yet filled with hidden energy. It is a moment of self-examination, hesitation, perhaps even acceptance.

I do not seek perfection. I record the truth—raw, honest, stripped of falsehood.

Kamila J Gruss
02.02.2025 Słupsk

“The Eye” explores themes of perception, identity, and self-awareness in a world saturated with observation. The human face—the primary marker of individuality—is obscured, replaced by an enlarged, distorted eye, as if the act of looking has taken precedence over the essence of being.
The image raises questions about how we perceive ourselves and how others see us. Are we truly noticed, or merely observed? Does the gaze reveal truth, or does it distort reality? The fragmented reflections within the eye suggest a dual existence—both internal and external—at once familiar and alien.

The contrast between the deep red garment and the stark white background highlights the tension between the personal and the impersonal, between presence and detachment. In an era where surveillance, digital identities, and social visibility shape our existence, “The Eye” becomes a meditation on the fragile boundary between looking and being seen

Kamila J Gruss
02.02.2025 Słupsk