Dzina Liaonava

Video-Call With My Son N1

Jackson's Art Prize 2026
Watercolour
Canvas
120 x 90 cm

£2,400

“This work is part of a series Dzina Leonova began while studying at the Royal College of Art, titled “The Russian Doll.” The series explores the uncanny, intimate sensation of looking at a family member and recognising one’s own features in their face – as if time briefly collapses and different generations overlap. During her studies in London, Dzina was separated from her husband and son, who remained in Warsaw. Much of their connection happened through daily video calls, and she collected screenshots from these conversations as source material. These digital fragments were then placed in dialogue with images from her family’s black-and-white photo archive. Working in black-and-white watercolour, Dzina mirrors both the look of analogue family photographs and the slow, anticipatory process of their development. Each painting is built through layered washes of black, gradually emerging on the surface much like an image in a darkroom tray. This method turns the act of painting into an act of reconstruction – allowing memory, distance, and identity to develop together, one layer at a time.”