Ukraine, 2017-2021

Images engage a generation of young men caught up in the shifting history of their country but determined to live freely. In his photographs, this freedom finds emblematic form in nakedness. Liberated from the social signifiers of dress and uniform, the young men assert themselves as individuals independent of wider societal constructs. And, in so doing, they succeed in appearing both innocent and provocative.

Even now, the male body can be a challenging subject in photography. While male nudes abound in the fine arts, they invariably wear their nudity as a mantle of allegory, representing the heroic traditions of Ancient Greece, the piety of the Christian martyr or some such elevating garb.

They are simply ordinary young men doing the kind of things young men do, but without clothes. Yet here too, their nudity tends to lead the imagination to metaphor – to see them not simply as individuals but as capturing the spirit of a generation.

(c) Alasdair Foster