THINK+feel Contemporary is pleased to announce its participation in the upcoming Photo London, May 11-14, 2023 at Somerset House. The gallery will feature singularly talented female photographer Katerina Belkina, a representative of the young generation of Eastern and Central European artistic wave, who has already made a significant mark on the art world.
Soon after she finished her academic training as a painter, Katerina replaced her paint brush with a camera and her sublime, often mystical self-portraits started appearing in galleries and museums from Paris to Berlin to Moscow, and Beijing. In 2007, Katerina Belkina was nominated for the prestigious Kandinsky award (it terms of significance, en par with the UK Turner Prize). She was a multiple winner of the Moscow International Photo Awards MIFA. In 2015, she was awarded the international Lucas Cranach the Younger prize in Germany. 2016 saw her become a winner of the coveted Hasselblad Masters Award. Belkina has participated in biennial exhibitions in Austria, Poland, Russia, the Netherlands, South Korea and Germany and a number of institutional and gallery exhibitions around the world.
Her solo presentation at Photo London might be perceived as a mini retrospective of this multidimensional young artist as it showcases works from several of her aesthetically distinct series.
In the chronologically earliest series - Paint- Katerina pays homage to her original artistic education as well as the giants of modern art - male painters who informed its history (Picasso, Klimt, Schiele, Gauguin, Malevich).
In her dual role as the artist-creator as well as the the subject matter of the works- Katerina created images that might be mistaken for paintings by these great modern masters. These photographs could be mistaken for their paintings but they are undeniably her unique creations. They are an interplay between the traditional and new types of visual art asking the viewer a long-debated (though now largely rhetorical) question is photography art? Is it en par with painting?
Looking at Belkina’s images, the answer is an unqualified and emphatic yes! In fact, Katerina herself says she’s attracted to photography because of its realism and its immediacy. She welcomes the public’s initial confusion when encountering her works and its inability to decide whether they are looking at photography or painting.
By observing subjects of the series, it is clear that Katerina firmly took the artistic reins into her own hands and brought the subjects of her artworks firmly to the 21st century. Katerina freed her of the limitation of the traditional sexuality of a nymph or goddess and presented new contemporary types of women who are as acceptable as they are strong in photographs as they are in real life. (For Gaugin, For Petrov-Vodkin) (For Gaugin, For Petrov-Vodkin)
Her series Zweiraumwohnung (aka Two-bedroom apartment), specifically her works 11 ml per minute, Kitchen Story and Besrat (Good News) offers an intimate portrait of a contemporary urban woman, a “rear window” peek into her life, where (due to proximity) nothing is hidden: the way she lives, the way she relaxes, how she deals with her happy and less happy moments. Katerina’s self-portraits though aesthetically inspired by the Golden Age of Dutch painting -are once again multidimensional. She personifies every woman who rules her kitchen, she is every mother who longs for more time with her infant child, but also a person who wishes for more time for self care if only on weekends. She epitomizes every young woman for whom a morning cup of tea or coffee is essential to energize her for the day, every young person who dreams of being able to afford a larger apartment or at least a balcony to relax on a sunny day.
Moreover, this series is not only strongly feminine but also feminist. Hers might not be the traditional feminist agenda one would expect or is used to. Her feminist “fight” has a different, more subtle dimension. Through sharing her thoughts, by offering a glimpse of their inner and outer world, the artist educates and makes a profound impact on her social and cultural environment. Despite its subtle language her resulting manifesto is in no way diminished.
In her latest series For All Mankind, Katerina expands her philosophical artistic boundaries and takes on a crucial concept of our times - that of self-acceptance: acceptance of one's body, age, gender, ethnicity, and abilities. She opens up about and openly deals with fears and neurosis that are non gender specific- simply human.
The artist strongly believes that as sentient beings, each of us should try to find one’s own individual way in life without striving to superficial (social) idols. She acknowledges the fact that as old structures deteriorate and life fundamentally changes, it is extremely difficult to find one’s way while it is quite easy to just blame oneself for the adversity, tribulations, for all the failures in life. Belkina, therefore, directs one’s gaze and mind to the centuries old adage that instability can be a path to progress and positive change, no matter how difficult it is to harness courage necessary to try new things no matter how unclear and scary with no guarantees of success.
She strongly believes that only by suspending the program of self destruction in oneself can we cease the program of destruction of everything around us, whether it is destruction of humanity and being human, destruction of our planet and the environment, and most importantly our peaceful existence.
We invite you to visit our presentation in person. For all the online collectors, for a preview of our presentation and more please visit our virtual 3D online exhibition.
Virtual Photo London continues on Artsy platform until May 29, 2023.
For more information about the presentation, please contact the gallery.
THINK+feel Contemporary
silvia@thinkfeelart.com
M:+1.202.256.2960 (also WhatsApp, Viber, Signal)
O: +1. 305.204.7484
You can download a catalog of the exhibition here.
For Photo London 2023, please visit Photo London website.