Dark Alley (Doll Artist)

When I first encountered Veronika Lozovaya's artwork, I was immediately amazed, enthralled and enamored with her gothic art dolls. The pain, the longing, and the vulnerability caught within her Lost Children dolls' expressions were moving and difficult to ignore. The avid researcher in me started looking into Veronika's artwork to see who she was, what inspires her, and where she came from only to find very little information about the artist herself. Naturally, I decided to contact Veronika to find out more about her because I strongly felt the world needed to know more about the woman behind this fascinating array of wonderfully macabre art dolls.

What inspires you?

For the most part my work is a reflection of my own childhood experiences and emotions associated with them, and everything that brings them out inspires me to create.

Everything about creating a doll is hard for me because my skills lag behind my imagination by a lot.

How and when did you first get started creating dolls?

It was year 2010, if I remember correctly, I discovered Etsy with all of its amazing art work.The concept of an art doll was completely new to me and I was fascinated. I used to draw and make plush before, but I was always in search of new better ways to express my creativity and the thought of creating something tangible, that involved sculpting, painting and sewing, was very appealing to me. It was scary at the same time as I didn’t know where to start. After a year of online research, I dared to sculpt my first art doll. She was named Alice (as Alice in Wonderland).

What is the hardest part about creating your dolls?

Everything about creating a doll is hard for me because my skills lag behind my imagination by a lot.

Are you working on a new doll at the moment?

I am working on new dolls for the Lost Children series and a little bit on two new prototype dolls.

What would people be surprised to learn about you?

I find it difficult to answer interview questions and talk about me and my art in general. That is why my website is still lacking the “About” page, I just can’t come up with something that won’t bore people to death, not to mention writing an artist statement, I will probably never do that :)

Do you admire any artists?

There are quite many talented artists out there but of the top of my head these are my most favorite:

Colleen Downs of LoopyBoopy is an amazing Gothic doll artist. It’s when I saw her work for the first time I thought that I wanted to make dolls too. I wanted people to look at my dolls and feel what I felt when I saw her strange and sad girls with big black eyes that looked right into my very soul. I am especially fond of Colleen’s early work.

Tari Nakagawa is my all time favorite BJD artist. I find her work to be a quite unique blend of excellent skills with macabre yet beautiful expressions.

Kardenchiki Dolls are a world of their own. Beautiful living dolls.

Can you tell me a bit more about these particular creations - the process you took to make them, what inspired you to create them?

Anichka like all dolls of the Lost Children series represents the feeling of being lost, emotionally, mentally or physically. We all have times in our lives when we feel lost, helpless and scared, in need of a hug and reassurance that everything will be ok. This is what this series is about.

Anna was inspired by an old Russian tradition to bury young women who died unmarried in a white wedding dress.

When I was little, we had this big vintage suitcase full of old black and white family photographs. One day as I was looking through them, I found a picture of a young girl with long dark hair. She looked like the most beautiful porcelain doll. I asked my mom who she was, my mom told me she was her childhood best friend who died of cancer at the age of 17. There later I found a photo of her laying in a coffin in a white dress, her long hair carefully resting on her chest, her head decorated with flowers and a veil lifted off her face and she looked just as beautiful as on the first photo, but yet so strikingly different. There was something about her beautiful dead face that gave me chills every time I looked at it. it was the first time I felt fear of how fragile life was.The image of that girl is still haunting me to this day, I believe it was one of the earliest influences that molded my Gothic personality and the love for dark art. Her name was not Anna, but Anna is a very common name in Russia.

Anna is one of my favorite dolls, and I am planning on making a series of “Unmarried’’ BJD dolls in the future.

After receiving an amazing opportunity to know this unique artist, I realized Veronika is not used to taking the attention away from her creations and describes herself to be actually quite boring - hence, the lack of an artist statement on her website. Veronika Lozovaya is anything but boring as evidenced by the brilliant creations her mind has pushed her to imagine and create.

Dark Alley's website
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Dark Alley on Etsy
Dark Alley on Youtube
Dark Alley on Pinterest