The Florentine, Lorenzo de Medici, would have approved of Gerusova. A statesman of the most powerful city state in 15th century Europe, he was also a patron of the arts and an advocate of education. With his trusted advisors he commissioned the best renaissance painters, asking them to use their artistic talents to entice the people of Florence to engage themselves in religion, science and modern society. By the second half of the century, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli and Titian were painting endless masterpieces of women, exuding beauty and sex appeal with the underlying message of promoting Medici’s noble causes. Medici never coined the term “sex sells”, but the idea of reaching an audience through their senses, rather than adhering to some elitist ideals, proved to be Medici’s masterpiece.

Gerusova performs along the same century-old visual methods, highly aware of the role of the female subjects in her work. Like the Renaissance painters, it is through the female subjects, that she achieves the viewer’s attention, communicating messages of lifestyle and beauty. Sceneries of an affluent Californian lifestyle; homes with swimming pools; large sun terraces and luxury bathrooms; and days-out on fun-filled tracking in the Santa Monica hills. Each picture suggests its own story, including a sense of intrigue and curiosity, making us inquisitive about these women and what their lives are like. Allowing the model’s personality and presence to become the dominant factor of the work, the artist promotes her message elegantly.

Growing up on a Russian military base in the eighties, Gerusova’s life was far from the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles and Hollywood. But what may have been worlds apart geographically, was made up for through a combination of her father’s interest in portrait photography and her mother’s pile of fashion magazines. Evenings of assisting her father in the darkroom; mixing chemicals; developing film; and watching images come to life, ignited a spark in the young girl, inspiring her to pick up a camera and pursue a career as a fashion photographer. Shortly after finishing her university degree in Arts and Music, Gerusova was on a plane to New York City, in what became a short two months stop-over, before moving to the East Coast in search of the Hollywood dream.

In California, Gerusova worked tirelessly to build her portfolio, doing photoshoots with as many models as possible and trying out numerous locations. At one point she contacted Miss Mosh; a famous burlesque dancer and model on the West Coast scene. With Mosh in front of the camera and Gerusova behind, the two women, both born in the Soviet Union, hit it off creatively and the artist’s unique style within fashion photography started to take form.

It is Gerusova’s genuine relationships with the women she works with that allow this form to happen. The confidence between them rubs off on her subjects and discovering the type of women the artist shoots is essential to the images she emits. The artist is open about her influences; the closest being the German photographers Helmut Newton and Ellen von Unwerth. This is visible in her work and all three of them are working with themes of sexy, strong and independent women. Unlike Newton, who took ownership of voyeuristic and erotic monochrome photography in the twentieth century, and Unwerth’s well-known supermodel shots and nude women engaging in naughty games, Gerusova places herself somewhere in between. From her earliest photographs, the distinctive character of Gerusova’s models are at the centre of her work, swirling around their personality while always possessing a whimsical innocence and spirited mischievousness.

Toni in a Bathtub. Hollywood CA, May 2013, an image from one of the artist’s first shoots in Los Angeles, exudes a still coolness and elegance. The darkness of the room and the black marble around the bathtub reveals extraordinarily little about the setting. The only exception being the out-of-focus bathroom essentials, looking almost inserted into the shot. Intentionally, Toni steals the show with her hair rolled up, featuring make-up and gracefully long legs that never seems to end.

From Gerusova’s many shoots with burlesque performer Miss Mosh, Marching Mosh. Hollywood CA, April 2014, is a striking and fun-filled composition of Miss Mosh laying on a sun lounger with outstretched legs. The stark lighting of the piece makes it look like the bikini-clad model is on the stage with her stance similar to being draped across a swinging trapeze high above the “City of Angels”, extending and exposed in the distance below.

The inspiration for many of the artist’s works springs from her professional shoots. In a short few-hour session with the lingerie brand ‘Playful Promises’ in New York in the autumn of 2015, Gerusova chose another of her favourites, Gia Genevieve; an L.A. based bomb-shell model exuding old Hollywood glamour. In Hanging with Gia. New York City, September 2015 Genevieve is flirtatiously swinging from a dusty-white arched iron partition in the room. Only wearing lingerie, the pose is sexy and effortless which at once accents the provocative curves of her body. The monochrome photograph and the early-century décor send the viewer back to a time of classic Hollywood productions.

From the same series, When the Cat’s Away. Gia Genevieve, NYC, September 2015 plays on different strings in this highly erotic and significantly seductive image. Genevieve’s provocative attire of stockings and stilettos, the triangle of her hands, the perfect red nails and the cat-flap with its mischievous cerise-pink interior, raise the sexual allure into a different dimension. It is a sophisticated and brilliantly suggestive image with element of intrigue and ambiguity.

Representing works from the earliest part of her practice, four photographic editions were released in an exclusive collaboration between Tatiana Gerusova and Eyestorm. The monochrome works, Toni in a Bathtub. Hollywood CA, May 2013, Marching Mosh. Hollywood CA, April 2014 and Hanging with Gia. New York City, September 2015, showing three of the artist’s favoured muses - was followed by When the Cat’s Away. Gia Genevieve, NYC, September 2015 the year after. The Photographic chromogenic-type lambda prints are each an edition of 8 and signed and numbered on front.

You can find more details about the four photographic editions on Tatiana Gerusova’s artist page here.