EARLY ON KATERINA BELKINA understood her exceptional talent to see the world through different eyes. Born in Samara, southeast of European Russia, she was brought up in a creative atmosphere by her mother, a visual artist. Her education as painter at the Art Academy and from 2000 at the school for Photography of Michael Musor in Samara gave..Read on
EARLY ON KATERINA BELKINA understood her exceptional talent to see the world through different eyes. Born in Samara, southeast of European Russia, she was brought up in a creative atmosphere by her mother, a visual artist. Her education as painter at the Art Academy and from 2000 at the school for Photography of Michael Musor in Samara gave her the tools to give vision to her ideas. Exhibitions of her sublime, mystic self-portraits followed in Moscow and Paris. In 2007, Katerina Belkina was nominated for the prestigious Kandinsky Prize in Moscow (comparable to Britain's Turner Prize). Her series of art photography include: Repast, Revival, Light & Heavy, Empty Spaces, Not a Man's World, Home Work, Paint. Katerina currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
"Katerina Belkina first came to the public's attention in 2006 with her series Paint, in which the viewer perceives the works as being unique and at the same time part of an intimate game which is being simultaneously played out between artist and model. Katerina draws her inspiration for these twelve works from her favourite artists of the 19th and 20th centuries with whom she has struck a creative alliance, inspired by both painting as a creative technique and concept. She has also played the part of muse, putting herself in the dual position of model and as painter. She speaks of an almost erotic relationship where the physical and the spiritual converge. She considers these works to be an homage to the artists: I was gripped by an urge not so much to indiscriminately imitate the Masters, but rather to dive into their innermost cores, to experience what had driven them, what had inspired them. Before starting on any of the works, I studied them down to the last detail. It is a sort of gift from me to my favourite artists, is how she puts it herself. We can recognise a Picasso in his Blue period, spot a ballerina by Degas, bump into the Suprematism of Malevich and the mysterious jungle of Rousseau le Douanier, the unapproachableness of Frida Kahlo, or the cool seduction of Tamara de Lempicka. And Belkina herself can match the sensual submission and decorative beauty of Schiele and Klimt‘s models. We see again a profound conceptual engagement of artist and person; this is no superficial self-portrait. Recognition of the selected Masters is immediate and insistent, but on closer inspection there is no indication that Belkina has copied a specific painting by one of the Masters; in each case she has created a new image in which the style and the atmosphere of the artist are clearly on view. She has painted the works that demonstrate the pictorial style of the chosen Master BEFORE making the photographs. This leaves us in absolutely no doubt as to Katerina Belkina‘s background: trained as a painter, and now painting with her camera." Text by Marike van der Knaap, Art Historian. Less
