Artist Ida Anderson has created a powerful photographic series called "Blue Valentines" that chronicles her emotional journey of leaving Russia on ethical grounds following the country's invasion of Ukraine. After living in Moscow for 20 years, Anderson made the difficult decision to relocate to Montenegro, where she found healing inspiration along the Adriatic coast that would define her latest creative work.

The "Blue Valentines" project represents both a personal love letter to identity and migration, as well as an artistic exploration of what Anderson calls "fractal communication" through the medium of cyanotype photography. "I found something deeply healing about the Adriatic coast after everything that happened," Anderson explains, referencing the same therapeutic blue color that now dominates her new body of work. The artist views photography as possessing unique communicative potential due to its widespread availability, reproducibility, and omnipresence, describing it as "almost like the perfect migrant – a medium that can be sent anywhere across the globe, continually transforming along the way."

Central to Anderson's creative process was her decision to send postcards featuring her cyanotype work to friends who had also left Russia. As these postcards traveled through various international postal systems, their surfaces gradually accumulated stamps, postmarks, and other tangible traces of their journeys across borders. This physical transformation of the artworks during transit achieved Anderson's goal of creating emotional photography that reveals subjective mental spaces rather than maintaining clinical neutrality.

Anderson's artistic vision deliberately explores what she calls "contemporary sensuality," with particular focus on its more complex and uncomfortable aspects. "I'm fascinated by exploring contemporary sensuality in general, especially its shady awkward sides," she notes. The resulting cyanotype prints capture a diverse range of subjects rendered in characteristic blue tones: water streams that become ripples within the print itself, lovers kissing in shadowy blue light, rainbows stripped of their natural colors, snowy landscapes, construction scenes, and delicate bird wings in flight.

The technical choice of cyanotype as a medium holds special significance for Anderson's thematic concerns. She emphasizes that while the cyanotype process appears simple, it demands direct human involvement and physical touch, making each photograph deeply personal and intimate. "I'm drawn to that trace of corporeality left on the image," Anderson explains. "And of course, cyanotype is one of the accurate ways to convey the emotional state of loss and melancholy." The striking negative space created during the cyanotype development process becomes an integral part of the work's visual impact, with Anderson's trained photographic eye capturing images that translate beautifully into the medium's distinctive aesthetic.

Through "Blue Valentines," Anderson has created more than just a photography series – she has crafted a meditation on displacement, ethical decision-making, and the ways in which art can serve as both communication and healing. The project stands as a testament to the power of creative expression to process complex emotions surrounding migration, political upheaval, and the search for new homes in an increasingly fractured world.