Gosha Bergal, 29, began photographing more than a decade ago, but it wasn’t a real hobby until Bergal suffered a knee injury. The twist of fate not only affected his artistic career, but also brought him a friend and a companion: his dog, Boris The Blade.
“The concept of this task came to me from the outside world, just like my dog. The series is called My Paws and Me and alludes to the similarity of the main characters,” Bergal explains. “In 2007, I injured my left knee and had to wear a splint. And when I met the dog in 2014, his left leg was also sewn, bleeding and swollen.
He ran into the wounded dog in the hallway of his building. The dog had been wondering from a structure site where he had been mistreated. ‘At the vet,’ an X-ray showed that his left leg was held through a splint. To me, Boris is more than a dog. My Paws and I are talking about synchronicity. And, of course, it’s a matter of love. “
Bergal finished My Paws and Me while leiating at the Rodchenko School of The Arts, in a course committed to self-portrait led by Igor Mukhin. “This task has more to do with a sense of connection than with myself,” the photographer adds. In Bergal’s work, the worldly main points of everyday life are a way to create an intimate view of a person’s life or, in this case, the life he shares with Boris.