Natalia Dorosh

The Belarusian Public Association of Photographers presents the retrospective photography exhibition “Photomagic of Natalia Dorosh,” organized in collaboration with the local history publishing house Riftur and the Panorama Gallery of the National Library of the Republic of Belarus. The project is dedicated to the memory of Natalia Dorosh, a photographer and photographic artist from Grodno whose work, over several decades, shaped a distinctive poetic tone within Belarusian artistic photography.

Natalia Dorosh’s creative career spans more than fifty years. The exhibition features key works across a wide range of genres, including landscape, still life, portrait, documentary, and fine art photography, as well as her most significant series: Poleshuks, Grodno, Industry, religious cycles, and works in the field of authorial photoplastic art.

Her landscapes and still lifes are marked by a pronounced painterly quality and refined control of light. Images seem to dissolve into a misty atmosphere, structurally evoking watercolor painting. A restrained color palette, attention to texture, delicate composition, and a sense of temporal suspension create a contemplative space in which everyday objects and familiar landscapes acquire a metaphysical resonance.

A special place in the exhibition is devoted to the image of Grodno, the city inseparably connected to Natalia Dorosh’s life and artistic identity. In her photographs, the city emerges as a living environment: through streets, architecture, human gestures, and scenes of everyday life, a holistic portrait of a space filled with memory and inner rhythm takes shape.

The series “Poleshuks,” developed over nearly forty years, represents a unique visual study of the Polesia region and its people. These works go beyond ethnographic documentation, conveying a profound sense of belonging to tradition and revealing character, the plasticity of gesture, and the meditative silence intrinsic to the Polesian world.

A significant part of Natalia Dorosh’s legacy is associated with religious themes. Her photographs of Orthodox feasts, processions, prayer, and sacraments are imbued with inner light and concentration. Here, photography becomes not a record of events but a form of spiritual testimony – an attempt to convey a personal experience of faith and dialogue with the sacred.

Natalia Dorosh’s works in the genre of artistic photoplasticity demonstrate a high level of visual thinking, multilayered imagery, and a subtle sense of form. These pieces address timeless themes – memory, time, silence, and human presence in the world – and resonate with the finest traditions of classical fine art photography.

The project “Photomagic of Natalia Dorosh” is not only a retrospective of an artistic journey, but also an effort to reflect on the artist’s contribution to the development of Belarusian photographic culture. Her ability to perceive refined beauty in the ordinary, her attentiveness to both people and space, and the inner honesty of her gaze form a rare artistic language that remains meaningful beyond time.

Natalia Dorosh was born on April 30, 1952, in Grodno (Belarusian SSR, USSR). She grew up in a family with strong cultural and humanistic traditions. A significant influence on the formation of her interest in photography came from her grandfather, Konstantin Beletsky – a physician and public figure who practiced photography in the early 20th century and left visual records of the period of the First World War. Natalia Dorosh began taking photographs in her teenage years; her early engagement with visual documentation developed in parallel with her interest in fine arts and theatre.

Her professional skills in photography and photojournalism were formed during the 1970s–1980s while working as a photo correspondent for Grodno-based periodicals and collaborating with regional print media. Her journalistic practice included reportage, portrait, and genre photography, coverage of cultural, social, and industrial topics, as well as documentation of everyday urban and rural life.

Natalia Dorosh was a member of the Minsk People’s Photo Club and the Belarusian Public Association of Photographers. She participated in and received awards at numerous All-Union, national, and international photography contests and festivals. One of her early significant achievements was First Prize at the All-Union Interclub Photography Exhibition-Competition The World of a Contemporary Person–82 (Grodno). Later, her photographic project The Flock received Second Prize at the Press Photo Belarus 2011 competition in the category Folk Traditions.

Natalia Dorosh’s artistic legacy includes a number of long-term, thematically structured series reflecting diverse aspects of Belarusian social and cultural reality. Among the most important is the series “Poleshuks,” which she developed over more than thirty years, consistently documenting the lives, daily practices, and cultural environment of the inhabitants of the Polesia region. A substantial part of her archive is also devoted to projects focused on the urban environment of Grodno, transformations of social life, and architectural and industrial motifs.

In 2016, her authorial photo album “Grodno Photo Stories” (Grodzenskia Fotahistoryi) was published, featuring over one hundred black-and-white photographs. The book represents a visual chronicle of the city of Grodno and reflects Dorosh’s distinctive approach to documentary photography, combining keen observation, compositional restraint, and sustained attention to the human presence within the urban landscape.

A separate direction of her work was the project “Roots,” dedicated to traditional Belarusian houses (khatas) and their inhabitants. In these works, architectural space and interior function as carriers of social and historical memory, allowing photography to be understood as a form of cultural documentation.

Natalia Dorosh’s photographs have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Belarus, Russia, Poland, and other countries. Selected series, including Poleshuks, were presented at international exhibition venues.

Alongside her artistic and journalistic practice, Natalia Dorosh was engaged in editorial and publicistic work. In the 1990s, she served as editor-in-chief of the revived publication “Grodno Diocesan Gazette,” which featured materials dedicated to the life of the Orthodox community and the ecclesiastical culture of the region.

Natalia Dorosh’s photographic style is characterized by a synthesis of documentary precision and artistic expressiveness, sustained attention to human presence, social memory, and historical context. Her work reflects a wide spectrum of processes and states within Belarusian reality from the second half of the 20th century to the early 21st century.

Natalia Dorosh passed away on 6 October 2025, at the age of 73. Her creative legacy occupies a stable and significant place in the history of Belarusian photography and represents an important resource for the study of national visual culture.

All materials are protected by copyright law.
The rights to the materials belong to the authors indicated in the publication.
Any copying, reproduction, or distribution without the prior written permission of the copyright holder is strictly prohibited.
Quotations are permitted only with proper attribution to the author, the original source, and a reference to the project.

© BAP, 2026