Clover Green's images strike a gentle balance between abstraction and fine art photography. In this conversation, conducted while Green was in Paris to see David Hockney 25 at Fondation Louis Vuitton, we discuss the origin of his moniker, the emotional and visual influence of cities like New York, London, and Paris, the effect of the American landscape on his latest book Dialogues, and his thoughts on ego, reinvention, and the art of discipline. What begins as a conversation in place quickly unfolds into a meditation on being.

RACHEL WEINBERG Let’s start at the beginning. You were born in the Ukraine. What was your life like there? What led you to move? And how did photography, film, and media first become part of your life?

CLOVER GREEN I have goosebumps from this question. Thank you for asking. I really loved my life in Ukraine, and I’m incredibly grateful to be from there. I feel like Eastern European culture, especially the underground scene, has so much to offer. My artistic journey started there, in underground culture, specifically with graffiti. My first dream was actually to become a painter, but I wasn’t very good at it. When I applied to art school, they told me I was too old to start. So, graffiti became a kind of protest — my first real visual expression. That’s also how I got into photography. After finishing a piece, you’d have to document it. A friend gave me a film camera, and I took a shot from above. I had no idea what I was doing, but somehow the photo turned out beautiful. Everyone in the graffiti crew called it the “photograph of the century.” The shot had the spray from the can perfectly in focus, while the face of the graffiti artist, who was meant to remain anonymous, was blurred. It was the first time I felt that this might be my thing. That moment started it all for me.

I think I’ve always been influenced by Ukrainian culture and artists like Malevich, who is one of my favourites. He created his own genre, and that spirit of innovation inspired me. At the same time, I think I was also searching for an escape. Visual art gave me a way to create my own world, something imagined, something beautiful. I love where I’m from, but it wasn’t always an easy place. It’s not Paris or London. The architecture is very brutalist, the city can feel heavy and even depressing at times. The nature is beautiful, but urban life can be tough. So, I think I was driven by a desire for beauty, for escape. I wanted to live in a world shaped by imagination, like looking through rose-coloured glasses.

Cinema was another big part of that. From around age 8, I was obsessed with movies. I spent so much time in the cinema, watching blockbusters like Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean. I didn’t know what independent cinema was at the time, but I was deeply moved by the experience of watching a story unfold in the dark, losing myself in it for two or three hours.

Interestingly, I studied law. I have a bachelor’s degree in business law. But when I spent time in America in 2015, during my third year of studies, I realised I didn’t want that life. My whole family are lawyers — my parents, my brother — and I had just followed that path without thinking much about it. But being in the U.S. showed me something different. It made me believe in the beauty of the American Dream. The idea that you don’t have to do something you don’t love. It’s that simple. So I started chasing my dreams.

RW You’ve adopted the moniker Clover Green. I wanted to ask what that name represents to you. Did you choose it as a way to distinguish between two parts of your life? The one you had and the one you were hoping to create?

CG Oh, that’s an interesting question. I’ve actually never thought about it that deeply, but I think you’re right. My real name is Volodymyr Kysil, which has always been difficult for people abroad, especially in English-speaking countries like the U.S. and the U.K. When I lived in America for five months, no one could pronounce it. People would call me Vladimir, Fofa, but never my actual name. I realised it was creating a barrier, and I needed to do something about it.

Clover started as a nickname. I’ve always loved the symbolism behind it: luck, success, happiness, like the four-leaf clover. In Ukraine, we have a saying: “How you name the ship is how it will sail.” That idea really stuck with me. I felt like I was creating a new version of myself, one with a more hopeful, intentional energy behind it.

When I moved to London, I realised that Clover alone wasn’t enough, especially when it came to things like registration forms, which always required a surname. I was living in Bethnal Green at the time, and my wife and I had just moved. We didn’t know anyone. Our only “friends” were from the TV show Friends. Our favourite character was Rachel Green, so the name Green really stuck. Rachel Green, Bethnal Green, it all felt aligned somehow.

We were renting an apartment from quite a spiritual woman who had a collection of books on symbolism and meaning. I was searching for direction, and one of the books had a chapter on the meanings of colours. Green stood out. It resonated with where I was at emotionally and creatively. I also have green eyes, as does my wife, and I’ve always had a strong connection to the colour. It just felt right.

I also like the sense of mystery the name brings. In America, people often expect to meet a girl when they hear the name Clover, which adds another layer. There’s a duality in my work, something both masculine and feminine, and I think the name reflects that. People often say, “Oh wow, what a cool name,” and I appreciate that.

Maybe one day I’ll “come out” with my real name, but for now, I like having this alternate identity. A kind of doorway into the world I’ve created.

RW I was also named after Rachel Green!

CG She is timeless. Friends is one of the reasons why I initially wanted to move to New York.

RW You left your law degree to pursue photography. At that point in your life, you mentioned being inspired by painters. Whose work were you looking at then? Was there a specific reference that began to shape your practice, or was it more of a run-and-gun, instinctive approach in the beginning?

CG I think my photography has really evolved over the last three years, especially since moving to London. When I first arrived, my Instagram account was hacked and deleted. I had built a large audience, and most of my work was coming through that platform. At first, I was pretty devastated, but eventually, I began to see it as a chance to start over, to enter a new chapter.

In a way, I was reinventing myself. London pushes you to your limits. It’s a competitive city, but also one filled with incredibly talented and creative people. I still believe some of the most influential artists and photographers are based there or started their careers there. Someone like Wolfgang Tillmans, for example, who has spent so much of his life in London. He’s a huge influence and inspiration for me.

The work I’m creating now reflects the changes I’ve gone through over these past three years. My journey into photography came from two things: my obsession with art in general and my ongoing effort to translate those influences into the photographic world. It’s also my way of staying original, a kind of life hack. I find that looking at art, rather than other photography, helps protect me from subconsciously copying what I see online. There’s just so much visual noise on the internet that it’s easy to be influenced without even realising it.

That said, my earliest photography inspirations were quite different. At first, it was someone like Terry Richardson, Helmut Newton (perhaps a puberty period), and then someone completely opposite, like Richard Avedon, Irving Penn or Peter Lindbergh. Peter's work really surprised me. The simplicity, the openness, and the natural beauty he captured, especially of women, made me fall in love with photography on a deeper level. He showed me the power of finding beauty in simplicity. 

More recently, my influences have expanded beyond photography. I’m drawn to artists like Paul Gauguin (he taught me colour), Marcel Duchamp (his thinking is exceptional!), and Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Mark Rothko, and Domenico Gnoli recently. A lot of sculptors taught me form and proportion, such as Isamu Noguchi, Brancusi, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and even Richard Serra, whose design work I also admire. That minimalist aesthetic, the forms, the textures—all of it has had a big effect on how I see and create images.

RW Your book is titled Dialogues, which suggests a kind of conversation, perhaps between the formal elements of art you’ve said interest you: colour, line, shape and form. Each image seems to contain some element or block that invites decoding and analysis. It raises the question of whether we’re meant to see the images as they are or if they’re pointing to something beyond themselves. How would you describe the work yourself? And do you think there is something more to see beneath the surface?

CG I think this photography invites that kind of interpretation, which I love. Even just yesterday, I showed the book to a creative, and he saw something in it that was completely new to me. There are so many different theories and perspectives people bring to it, and I find that exciting. To me, that’s the core of art, especially abstract art. It gives you the space to build your own meanings, your own worlds. You can project onto it; imagine freely.

My personal connection to this body of work definitely stems from my long-standing obsession with painting. I’ve mentioned before that the United States felt like a blank canvas to me. A white sheet. I was drawing with photography, in a sense. I was looking for a combination of strong forms and colour, driven by this almost obsessive attention to lines and shapes. That’s how it all started.

 What’s interesting is that now, since finishing the series, I can’t really see the world in that same way anymore. I don’t see those forms or lines everywhere like I used to. Maybe that way of seeing will come back, maybe not. But at the time I was creating the work, I was completely immersed. I was seeing shapes and colours constantly, and I carried a camera with me everywhere. I’d go for long walks, listening to electronic music — another major influence. The rhythm, the structure, and the repetition of electronic music really aligned with how I was seeing and capturing things.

I was trying to document the world around me, but in a way that created a new one, a kind of personal documentary through abstraction. Then later, sitting with the images, I’d notice: Okay, this one has space, this one is about form, this one’s colour. Every photo in the book contains those three elements in varying proportions. Some feel like diagrams; maybe one image is 40% space, 30% form, and 30% colour. That’s why the book is called Dialogues.

There are dialogues happening everywhere: between the images and the layout, within each photograph, between the viewer and the work, between memory and perception, and between the inner and outer world. There are so many layers.

RW What was the initial impetus behind the book?

CG I think I just felt a need to do something with the images. I had been shooting for three years and didn’t really know what the end goal was. I had around 5,000 to 10,000 photos. It was constant. Maybe it came from a subconscious feeling, especially not seeing New York for a long time and then returning with fresh eyes. When I first went back in 2022 after a long break, two things stood out to me immediately. First, the red and yellow tones and the presence of these huge forms. That’s really what started the process. I began capturing those elements, almost instinctively, just following what caught my eye.

Then I returned to London, and the process continued. After that, I was in Paris, then Milan, and in each city, it was like I was leaving visual notes. I kept collecting them, noting, recording, and responding. Eventually, I realised I needed to ask myself: where is all this going? What does it amount to? That’s why I think it’s so important to put your work out into the world. To give it a place, a shape, so you can create space for something new.

I’m curious about what’s next. Originally, this book was meant to be the first in a trilogy called On Space, On Colour, and On Form. But, as I mentioned earlier, I don’t see the world that way anymore, at least not right now. It’ll be interesting to see if that way of seeing comes back. I really don’t know.

RW I was going to ask what challenges you faced during the project, but it seems like some may have emerged afterwards. How has completing the project changed your perception of your own work, and how have you navigated or overcome those shifts?

CG Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think, in general, the path of an artist is always challenging. I’m not complaining or regretting anything. It’s just the reality. It’s both difficult and amazing at the same time, and I’ve always loved challenges. My background is in sports. My first dream was to become a footballer. That mindset, pushing through difficulty and constantly improving, really carried over into my life as an artist. Sport is full of obstacles, and I think that’s why my transition into the creative world felt quite natural. I don’t see “challenge” as a negative word. It just means finding the right key to unlock something.

For Dialogues, the biggest challenge was figuring out what to do with the huge number of images I had.  Interestingly, the original idea was completely different. It actually started as a project about electrical wires. That could still become a smaller project someday, maybe a zine or a gazette. I was fascinated by the way electric wires are used in places like Brooklyn.

In Brooklyn, you notice these dense, chaotic networks of wires. Because of the city’s constant growth, they had to find quick ways to connect more and more people to the grid, so instead of running infrastructure underground, they just stacked wires on top of each other. It’s messy, but also kind of beautiful. These electricians accidentally created sculptures in the sky. After visiting places like Storm King and Dia Beacon and seeing how artists draw inspiration from their surroundings, I began noticing how these everyday structures were forming abstract shapes, mostly chaotic curves and lines.

Midway through the process, everything changed. I had a call with the art director. We were supposed to be finishing the wire project and she was presenting a plan for how we could shape it. I remember saying, “This is beautiful, but I think we need to change the entire concept.” She was shocked. Not angry, but surprised because when you’re that deep into something, it’s hard to let go. But after taking a little time to process it, she came back and said, “Yes, let’s do it.”

From there, a new challenge began. I only had three months to pull everything together. It was intense. But I actually think pressure like that is a good thing. If you have too much time, you can lose momentum. The work can drift, become too abstract or be unfinished. Deadlines force you to make decisions. They bring the work into reality.

So, yes, the challenges came both during and after. But they pushed me to be decisive and honest with myself about what the work really was.

RW You’ve worked on a number of commercial projects, but the way you describe your personal work feels very considered and analytical. You’re always searching for something, whether it’s a composition, a pattern, or a moment of opportunity. In commercial work, there’s often less time and more pressure, especially with bigger budgets and tight schedules. How do you bring your personal approach into those kinds of fast-paced environments?

CG I think studying law was actually a good thing for me. It taught me to be organised and to think critically. In law school, you’re constantly put in situations where you have to debate, defend your position, and speak with confidence. If you’re unsure or hesitant, you’re not going to make a strong argument, and I think that mindset has carried over into my creative work. As I said earlier, sport also played a big role. It instilled a strong sense of discipline in me. So, while I might be more chaotic or spontaneous in my personal life, I tend to make big decisions based on intuition. When it comes to work, I’m very organised. Discipline is key. Without it, building a sustainable career is much harder. I actually enjoy putting myself under pressure, giving myself deadlines, and finding creative ways to deliver on time. It forces you to stay sharp and productive.

I remember when I was working on a project with an established client, right after the new creative director came in. The concept was focused on a new colour direction. I had only one hour to pitch an idea and two days to execute it. That was it! No time to overthink, just trust your instincts and deliver. And I like that kind of challenge.

RW Oh, wow.

CG Yeah, it’s definitely challenging, but I’m like, “Cool! Let’s do it.” That’s just how I think. It’s never, “Oh my gosh, I hate this.” I believe that the circumstances you’re working under shape your approach. When you’re under pressure, something shifts; it’s almost physical. Your mind starts producing solutions in a different way; maybe it’s adrenaline, but I think it helps creativity. Some of my best ideas have come out of that space, where you’re forced to act with confidence and direction because you simply don’t have the time to second-guess yourself. Overthinking can be just as dangerous as under-preparing. It can lead you into confusion or self-doubt. That’s why structure and organisation are so important. I definitely feel the pressure sometimes, but honestly, I thrive in it.

RW What’s one thing outside of your work that you’d like people to know about you? Or something you hope people remember about your approach to life or creativity?

CG I’m always trying to, both in my work and in life, reinvent myself, and keep searching for something new. I want to find my own voice. You know how sometimes you can look at an image and immediately know who made it. Like Viviane Sassen or Wolfgang Tillmans. Their work has a clear signature, a distinct idea behind it. That’s something I admire deeply.

But for me, first and foremost, I want to enjoy life and feel happy with what I’m doing. It’s easy to get caught up in the obsession with being understood or being liked, especially as an artist. Art is about response. We create with the hope that it will resonate. But sometimes that desire for recognition can take over, and I’ve felt myself fall into that trap. It’s not the right way, and I try to remind myself of that.

What I really want is to keep creating beautiful things, to explore new ideas and to stay open. I still believe that new ideas are possible; they’re not exhausted. Reading Rick Rubin’s book really helped me realise that. I highly recommend it to any creative person. He doesn’t even do the technical side of music production. He’s just a visionary. For me, that book became a kind of Bible. It helped me let go of the pressure to be recognised and reminded me to focus on the work itself.

I’m 28, which is young in the broader scheme of life. I just hope there will continue to be space in the world for what I do. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the direction humanity is heading. I saw a post the other day that said, “We don’t need another iPhone or rocket. The new Steve Jobs will be someone who finds a way to disconnect us.” That really stuck with me. In a world that’s so hyper-connected, maybe the real privilege is to disconnect.

We’re constantly being told we need more. More tech, more innovation, chips in our heads, robots in our homes. But I don’t think we need all of that. Maybe those are the dreams of people who are chasing recognition more than connection.

So in that sense, I see my work growing with me. I used to be obsessed with perfection, always chasing the perfect image, the perfect execution. But now, I feel something shifting. I want to let go of that. I want to break the line, tilt the frame, and let some chaos in. That’s not just a change in my work. It’s something happening inside me too. I’m tired of controlling everything. I want to let it go. And I think that’s where I’m at now.

RW Is that the advice you would give yourself 10 years ago? To let go, separate from the ego and commit to the work?

CG Ten years ago, when I was 18, I think I was in the kind of period where you’re just beginning to grow into yourself. You feel like the world is yours, like you can do anything. And it is amazing. I really miss that feeling sometimes. That sense of freedom, of confidence, even arrogance. As you grow older, you lose a bit of that boldness, that belief of, this is mine, and I’m going for it. I was thinking about that recently, wondering where that version of me has gone. I’m not that guy anymore. But I guess, in exchange, you gain other things: empathy, self-awareness, and a sense of responsibility to others. And that’s healthy. People can feel arrogance, and they can sense when it comes from a place of self-interest or entitlement. So, it’s probably a good thing that it softens over time.

For the past few years, I’ve been wanting to make a film called The Death of Ego. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot, especially since moving to London. That experience really changed me. I realised that having a big ego makes it hard to be real, not just authentic with others, but honest with yourself. Ego distorts how you see your work and how you assess your progress. Losing ego, or at least loosening its grip, is a necessary step if you want to see clearly.

 I often think of Vivian Maier, the street photographer. Her work was genius, but she kept it to herself. No one saw it until after she died. I’ve wondered if that was strength, her confidence in not needing external validation, or if she was struggling with something deeper. Because if a book or a body of work exists, but no one ever sees it, it might still be art, but it doesn’t get the chance to inspire, to influence, to live.

Right now, I’m reading the diaries of Andrei Tarkovsky. He talks about the same idea: that art has always been made for people, by people. It’s a constant exchange. I really believe that. That’s just how I see it, at least for now. Maybe in ten years, my view will change. We all change. Maybe that’s the point.