bio
Anton Timofeev (b. 1987) is a visual artist working with photography. Born in Tbilisi and raised in Moscow, he is currently based in Belgrade.
His practice investigates non-human spatiality and the structural logics of urban environments, examining fragments, surfaces, and configurations that evade anthropocentric reading. Through photographic observation, Timofeev isolates architectural and infrastructural elements as autonomous systems, revealing latent orders and tensions embedded within the built environment.
He studied Fine Art at the British Higher School of Art and Design (Moscow) and architecture at RMIT University (Melbourne). His work has been presented in a number of group exhibitions, including projects developed during his studies at BHSAD.
artist statement
At the core of my practice lies the mechanics of estrangement. I am interested in the non-human as an autonomous material order—a cold, impersonal configuration where meaning is not generated by our presence. In my work, urban space is not a backdrop for social narratives but a self-sufficient structure where the human survives only as a trace, a disturbance, or a technical error.
My method involves a rigorous, formal elimination of everything that prompts habitual interpretation. By isolating architectural fragments and removing narrative cues, I aim to reveal the irreducible autonomy of the material. Photography serves here as a tool to suppress the reflex to explain and appropriate. Relations between concrete, metal, light, and synthetic textures unfold beyond our control, leaving behind structures that are simultaneously continuous and incomplete.
This way of seeing is honed by social anxiety, which sharpens sensitivity to the opacity and fundamental strangeness of the environment. My images offer no comfort; they resist the cultural compulsion to endow the world with emotional utility. Instead, I document a reality that is hermetically sealed. It is an encounter with the “uncanny” not as a psychological concept, but as a physical sensation: the disorientation of facing a world that is complete without us and fundamentally indifferent to our gaze.
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