These lines conclude Two Loves, a poem penned by Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, Oscar Wilde’s lover. It is a lush and yearning work, which expresses his homosexual desire even while it remains unutterable. This thread of rich and meaningful silence runs through the work of London-based artist Veronika Butkevich, who draws from their own experience growing up closeted under dictatorship, forming an identity from the unthinkable and unspeakable.
Veronika’s background in film and animation lends itself to an oeuvre that spans photography, videography, mixed media, and installation. Drowning Within, displayed in 2021 at the Archa Theatre in Prague, is a hand-drawn illustration of a woman submerged in water to the mouth, superimposed with a digitally animated projection that evokes the dancing reflections on water. This layered composition seeps out of the expected frame and the viewer is drenched in blue light and an eerily soothing sunken soundscape. We consider what may be projected upon us, what surfaces we are expected to reflect.
This work expresses how “cultural restraint can push people inward,” says Veronika herself, in a symbolic drowning under the weight of one’s own shirked emotions and identity. The opened lips, mouth filling with water, and gesture to a culture of silence, where to express one’s identity or desires is met with suppression. It is an exercise in treading water, in exerting all of one’s energy just to stay afloat, unable to break free or progress. All that turbulence, the thrashing and fighting, is concealed within. Building an identity, knowing your true self, these staples of coming-of-age are secondary when you are trying to keep your head above the surface.
Where their previous work has drawn upon their own experience, none is more personal than the double-sided portraits of Veronika and their mother, Like Mama, Like Doch. The photographs, taken one year apart, see mother and daughter, costumed in matching modern attire. This ties the piece to her studio portraiture of cool and confident young people, but there is a palpable tension here. The artist’s guarded and vulnerable posture contrasts with the mother’s clinical and aloof gaze.
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The installation of this work incorporates hanging transparent screens that obscure the images, inscribed with an unspoken exchange, “- WHAT IF I WAS ONE OF THEM, WOULD YOU STOP LOVING ME? / - YES.” To see the unobscured portraits, we are forced to look at oblique angles, the orientation of our bodies queered. Veronika describes the project as “a portrait of love constrained, and the quiet ache of being loved only in part.”
Their modern and minimalist set design and installation calls to mind the scenography deployed in The Screens/Les Paravents by queer enfant terrible Jean Genet, a writer whose works grapple with identity, deception and sexuality. His set design incorporates transparent screens on which domestic items are drawn, that move on and off the stage in dead silence. They signify the ways that our attention can be misdirected, how our reality can be warped under colonialism and authoritarianism, the disruption of relationships to others and ourselves. Veronika’s screens distance us.
In the context of LGBT+ political history, silence is multivalent. To fight institutional apathy, AIDS activists proclaimed: Silence = Death. Die-ins and vigils, such as those held yearly for Trans Day of Remembrance, are symbolic silences that demand attention and draw queer people together in solidarity and mourning. But these events are never truly silent. A symphony of environmental noise, of people reaching out to one another, weeping, shuffling feet. Our bodies create noise unconsciously.
As the experimental composer, John Cage, learnt whilst sequestered in Harvard University’s anechoic chamber, we cannot escape the music of the blood in our veins. This experience led him to create his famous “silent” work, 4'33''. He, too, drew on his experience of being closeted. His relationship with his partner, choreographer Merce Cunningham, was closely guarded, following a philosophy rooted in the meditative silences of Zen Buddhism. His work emphasized listening to and through silence, finding it rich and saturated with meaning. Drowning Withinand Like Mama, Like Doch are installations heavy with silence and, paradoxically, the impossibility of silence.
First displayed at indie film club co-run by the artist, Come n See, the clinical and tense Like Mama, Like Doch juxtaposes its surroundings of a warmly lit, communal queer space. It too contrasts with their commercial work as an event photographer, where they capture the easy intimacy between lovers and strangers in stunning film-like texture.
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Veronika’s film background lends itself to their intertexts – the various film posters that impose upon the backdrop. The queer maximalist exuberance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Pink Flamingos serve as a counterpoint to the minimalist constraint of the portraits. Buffalo ’66 harkens to deception of one’s parents, posturing to gain approval. The only poster the two figures share is that of Fight Club, perhaps a sardonic gesture towards that which we Don’t Talk About.
You can find more of Veronika’s work at their website: https://www.vmbutkevich.com/
Photo Credits (in order of appearance):
Cover. Veronika Butkevich - Event Photography - 2025
1. Veronika Butkevich - Drowning Within - 2021
2, 3, 4. Veronika Butkevich - Like Mama, Like Doch - 2025
5. Veronika Butkevich with installation of Like Mama, Like Doch - 2025
6. Jean Genet - Les Paravents, dir. Arthur Nauzycielat l’Odeon – Théâtre del’Europe - 2024
7. John Cage - 4'33'' - 1952
8. John Cage - 4'33'' Score - 1952
9. Unknown - John Cagein - Harvard University's Anechoic Chamber - 1951
10, 11. Veronika Butkevich - Event Photography - 2025
