Dmitriy Gushchin is a Boston-based fine art photographer who creates staged photographic tableaux exploring queer identity, mythology, and symbolism. Born in the Soviet Union and later relocating to the United States, his personal history informs a practice centered on resilience, transformation, and self-invention.

Drawing on classical painting, tarot archetypes, and theatrical portraiture, Gushchin constructs cinematic visual narratives that merge photography and digital compositing. His work has been exhibited internationally across the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, and has been shown in museums including the Cape Cod Museum of Art, the Monmouth Museum, and the Alexandria Museum of Art.

Dmitriy Gushchin’s Artist Statement

My work explores how mythology, symbolism, and theatrical portraiture can be reimagined to reflect contemporary queer identity. Working primarily through staged photography and digital compositing, I construct large-scale narrative tableaux that function as modern allegories. Each image is conceived as a self-contained scene while also contributing to larger, evolving bodies of work.

My practice draws from a wide range of visual and cultural references, including classical painting, religious iconography, tarot archetypes, and fashion photography. I am particularly interested in how symbolic systems shape cultural ideas of power, beauty, gender, and morality. By reinterpreting these symbols through a queer lens, I seek to challenge inherited narratives and propose new visual mythologies rooted in resilience, transformation, and self-invention.

Performance and staging play a central role in my process. Figures are photographed in controlled studio environments and later placed within constructed spaces that merge physical and digital realities. Mechanical elements, celestial motifs, ritual objects, and theatrical props recur throughout the work, forming a symbolic language that connects personal experience with broader cultural memory. This hybrid process allows photography to function not as documentation, but as a tool for world-building.

Across my projects, I am interested in the tension between public identity and private experience. Some series focus on heroic and mythic imagery, presenting queer figures as monumental, sacred, and timeless. Others examine intimacy, confession, and vulnerability, exploring the quieter spaces where identity is negotiated and revealed. Together, these bodies of work form a visual mythology that reframes queer existence as complex, powerful, and enduring.

Through photography, I aim to create images that exist between past and future, reality and performance, personal narrative and collective memory.

EXHIBITIONS

Museum Exhibitions

2025 — 38th September Competition Group Show, Alexandria Museum of Art, Alexandria, LA, USA
2025 — Through the Lens Photography Exhibition, Monmouth Museum, Lincroft, NJ, USA — Juror’s Award
2025 — Dreamscapes and Inner Worlds, Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA, USA
2024 — Departures, Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA, USA

Galery Exhibitions

2025 — Leftward Bound, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Sebastopol, CA, USA
2025 — ARTEXPO New York, New York, NY, USA
2025 — 8th Annual PROUD+ Show, San Diego, CA, USA
2025 — SWISSARTEXPO, Zürich, Switzerland

2024 — PARIS ARTEXPO, Galerie Agnes Nord, Paris, France
2024 — 8th Annual National Juried Art Competition, CCAN, Abilene, TX, USA — Juror’s Award
2024 — TPS 32 International Competition, Cain Art Gallery, TX, USA
2024 — Andi Art Gallery, Athens, Greece
2024 — SWISSARTEXPO, Zürich, Switzerland
2024 — 7th Annual PROUD+ Show, San Diego, CA, USA
2024 — Nicoleta Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2024 — Beyond the Photograph, Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Providence, RI, USA
2024 — Cipriarte Venezia Gallery, Venice, Italy
2024 — Texas National Exhibition, Austin State University, TX, USA
2024 — MassArt Auction, Boston, MA, USA

2024 — Thomson Gallery, Zug, Switzerland
2024 — Nicoleta Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2024 — International Juried Exhibition, Center for Contemporary Art, NJ, USA
2024 — Casa Del Arte Palma, Spain

2023 — PRC Members Exhibition, Cambridge, MA, USA
2023 — Big Gay Art Show, Sedona Arts Center, AZ, USA
2023 — Art Basel Weeks Miami, Miami, FL, USA
2023 — ShockBoxx Gallery, CA, USA
2023 — Thomson Gallery, Zug, Switzerland
2023 — Andakulova Gallery, Dubai, UAE
2023 — Mystery, Magic & the Macabre, KS, USA
2023 — Wickford Art Association, RI, USA
2023 — CCAN National Juried Competition, TX, USA
2023 — SWISSARTEXPO, Zürich, Switzerland
2023 — Naturalist Gallery of Contemporary Art, Washington DC
2023 — Nicoleta Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2023 — PROUD+ Exhibition, San Diego, CA, USA
2023 — Gallerium Art Prize, Toronto, Canada
2023 — Exibizone exhibitions (TIME, WINGS, Rebellion, Curves)
2023 — ARTBOX EXPO New York Art Week
2023 — MassArt Auction, Boston, MA

Earlier Exhibitions

2007 — HealMeStone Jewelry Solo Show, Brookline, MA
1999 — Crystal Art Fine Art Gallery, Boston, MA

AWARDS

2025 — Juror’s Award, Monmouth Museum, NJ
2024 — Juror’s Award, CCAN National Juried Competition, TX
2024 — Top 10 Finalist, TPS National Photography Award (Juror: Olivia Parker)

PUBLICATIONS & PRESS

2023 — Cambridge Day, Cambridge, MA
2023 — The RAGE Monthly, Southern California
2022 — Artistonish Contemporary Art Magazine, Toronto

EDUCATION

Doctor of Naturopathy — Clayton’s School for Natural Health, USA
MS in Physics — Perm University, Russia
Certified Bio-Energy Healer & Teacher — International Center of Experimental Parapsychology, Russia
Certified Hypnosis Therapist & Teacher — Kandyba International Center, Ukraine
Guitar Major — Teacher Association’s Music School, Russia

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

2019–present — DG Art Photo, Boston, MA
1996–present — Independent Artist, Boston, MA
1994–present — Institute of Russian Healing Arts, Boston, MA
1993–1998 — Curator & Art Dealer for Russian painter Victor Anufriev
1998–2002 — Dima and Garo Art Project, Boston, MA
2000–2015 — russianroulettefashion.com — Photography & Design
2005–2023 — healmestone.com — Jewelry design & photography
2013–present — Photography for painter YoAhn Han