Elena Sokolova works in the space between portraiture and psychological fiction. Her photographs begin with real people in real situations, but something in her method — extended sessions, minimal direction, long silences — produces images that feel suspended between what is and what might be.
Raised in Moscow, Elena studied literature before turning to photography, and the influence persists. Her images carry a narrative pressure: figures caught mid-thought, rooms that feel recently vacated, light that behaves as if something is about to be revealed.
Since relocating to Paris in 2016, she has produced three major bodies of work: Chamber (2018), a series of intimate portraits made in Parisian apartments; The Quiet Room (2021), documenting elderly residents of care homes in rural Normandy; and Salt (2023), her most recent project, made during an extended stay in Georgia (the country), examining women’s lives in the post-Soviet Caucasus.
She prints her own work in the darkroom and limits each edition to five.
Selected Exhibitions
Salt, Galerie VU’, Paris, 2024
The Quiet Room, Rencontres d’Arles, 2022
Chamber, Paris Photo — Solo presentation, 2019
New European Photography, Unseen Amsterdam, 2018
Publications
Chamber — artist book, self-published, 2019
The Quiet Room — monograph, Éditions Xavier Barral, 2022
Fisheye Magazine — cover, issue 49
Education
MA Photography, École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD), Paris, 2014
BA Literature, Moscow State University, 2010
