Slava Semeniuta is a Russian artist and photographer based in Sochi who works under the name Local Preacher. He says he has a “love [for] everything that looks cosmic,” in particular the bright garish neon colors because “neon colors are colors that are rarely found in nature.” 

Semeniuta uses these neon colors in his pictures, for example, his series of street puddles Wet Neon where he photographed and digitally altered the mirror surface of water to reflect vibrant neon colors or his series The Velvet Mountain in which Semeniuta used a “minimalist” palette of neon colors, mainly reds and blues, to create vibrant, textured images of a mountain peak.

Some of his work will bring comparisons with other neon photographers like Greg Girard’s neon streets—in particular his image of a waterlogged gutter reflecting all the colors of the night, or the erotic neon photography of Robert Babylon.

With his figurative work, Semeniuta focuses on the human body and its relationship to sensation. A bellybutton looks like a whirlpool in a gently undulating sea. A body is mapped by its circuitry of pleasure. He explores its sculptural form in highly stylized, supersaturated, and sensual images using bodypaint and digital techniques. See more of Local Preacher’s work here.
 

 

 

 
See more of Local Preacher’s neon bible, after the jump…