Paulina Otylie Surys' darkly beautiful work

Polish-born, London-based photographer Paulina Otylie Surys’ work is tricky to categorise. It’s somewhere between fine art and fashion, but equally, Paulina’s experimental vision seems to touch upon a new territory altogether.

Paulina’s foundations are undeniably skewed in the direction of fine art — after studying classical painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, she transitioned into photography. The impact of her background on her work is profound: Paulina cannot be considered purely a photographer but at once a photographer and artist, shooting in medium or large format and then hand painting her photographs with toners, chemicals and inks.

Despite its strikingly experimental appearance, Paulina’s work echoes the uncanny elements of early Victorian photography. Fittingly, her first book was titled Limbo, a reference to Baudelaire’s infamously miserable volume of gothic poetry Les Fleurs Des Mals.