I ❤ NYC

A series of film photos from New York, created by Ukrainian photographer Kateryna Stelmashchuk in 2016-2018.

“It is a story of people and mannequins, movement and stillness, tenderness and brutality of the city that never sleeps. The city with millions of residents, where your loneliness feels bigger than the Empire State Building. This is why it's an ideal place for observing ever-changing urban rhythms, people, and mesmerizing geometry without attracting NYPD's attention.

One can describe New York all they want — and no words would do it justice. But a photograph invites the viewers to create their own interpretation of a city, even — and especially — if they haven't been there yet. After all, that's one of many things that photography does — it captures real, specific environments where you can set your own stories.

This series is my ode to New York, my way of saying "I ❤️ NYC."

Without words.”


Katya Stelmashchuk

Explores geometry, movement, light, and textures through film and digital photography. She focuses on portrait, nude, and street photography, as these genres allow her to tell stories, observe Me-Other neverending confrontation, and reflect on human multifacetedness.

Cubism, surrealism, Johannes Vermeer’s use of light, and the works of Man Ray, Annie Leibovitz, Diane Arbus, and Henri Cartier-Bresson have influenced her artistic vision the most.

In April 2021, her series "The Human Condition" was presented in a virtual exhibition at Haze Gallery, Berlin. In December, Playboy Ukraine published her series of photos from New York.

Currently, she resides in Lviv and works on the project "City/Line/Stones".