"I still love those old Ukrainian folktales," said artist and fashion photographer Yelena Yemchuk at last night's preview of her show "Notes on Fantomas," which opens at the Dactyl Foundation next week. "Although maybe even a bigger influence was 'Master and Margarita,' by Bulgakov. That cat in the book changed my life," she added. Yemchuk was referring, of course, to the bumptiously anthropomorphic pet of the devil immortalized in Bulgakov's Stalin-era novel, which has near-biblical stature among ex-Soviets; for her, "that cat" offered a key lesson in the power of art. "You can create anything," she noted. "Why paint something you could just as easily photograph?" Flying crocodiles are among the phantasmagoric animals that can be found within Yemchuk's darkly whimsical tableaux, wherein animals of the human variety are playing an increasingly larger role. Nevertheless, according to Yemchuk, her Bulgakovian rule of thumb remains the same: "I figure, save reality for the camera."