ARTIST STATEMENT
"the fact that I was born and raised on a farm in Siberia..."
There is a different life somewhere out there. Life with early mornings before sunrise when you run outside to get eggs out of the chicken house to make omelets for breakfast. There is a life where you milk a cow before having a glass of milk. A life where you pick the vegetables in the garden for your salad and slaughter the cow if you want meatballs for dinner. There is a life with long evenings by the fire followed by songs and fairytales. There is a life with constant but pleasant troubles and everyday hard work. A happy life though, and happy people.
I was born and raised on a farm in a small town in southern Siberia. Growing up so close to nature and depending on it physically and emotionally forever imbedded the need to be around it. I lived in big cities in the past decade, and after school was over, I craved to go to a much quieter and less crowded place. I moved into a tiny home on wheels and drove around the country for months to "figure out life." But in reality, I was just running away through country’s most beautiful landscapes. Running away from myself, from responsibilities, growth, fear, love, happiness, all of it. It's in those moments of pure silence I heard the voice inside — all the light that's been hidden that now I desperately wanted to bring out into the world.
I remember I started school dreaming of becoming a designer but still wanted to be an artist. In my head, those were two completely different things: too precise versus too abstract, that somehow now came together in this medium – clay. And as I walk into the studio daily, it reminds me of our home farm: it’s a lot of physical labor and exhaustion but it brings you so much joy and happiness and meaning that it makes it worth keep building and creating.
