artist statement
In my practice I use video, sound, and painting to create immersive experiences and make the viewer question reality. I create communities and online experiments to gain data and inspiration for my work. Within that, I focus on my identity, mental health, and memories of my childhood to explore how the mind changes throughout one’s life and how different events might affect it. I also explore my cultural heritage as a Russian immigrant in England through mine and my family's memories of living in USSR and Russia.
My work is influenced heavily by my mental state as I find inspiration in the things that trouble me. I often use imagery and sound from my dreams in my work, which was especially prevalent in my recent series dreaming, in which I explored the nature of dreams and dreamlike states. Through art I understand myself more and learn to accept all parts of myself.
My process involves doing research using the internet, surveys, interviewing my friends and relatives, exploring many ideas and directions I am interested in until I find something I am inspired by. I also collaborate a lot as I find that brings out a lot more ideas than I would have on my own and enables me to be more ambitious with my projects. Soviet Dream was a project I did with a Polish friend in which we explored the similarities and differences between our countries and found ways to bridge the divide between them. We did this through different methods, such as installation, performance (a slavic feast during which we fed over 30 people and encouraged them to make new friends), online experimentation (an Instagram page parodying Soviet fanatics) and screen printing (a tablecloth which we screen printed together and stitched separately) which ultimately combined into one final video and installation.
The goal of my work is often to challenge and confuse the viewer and to offer a new perspective that they never thought of before. I want to bring different experiences to my work and use those to create new worlds which can be a source of escape and solace not only for me, but for other people as well. I aim to understand the world around me by making something that exists outside of it.