Dear Katya,
Thank you for inviting me to your studio. The two hours I spent with you were a privilege. I felt humbled to be in an intimate space containing your newest and therefore most enigmatic work.
Our conversation, which began with your liver drawings, raised many ideas as it flowed through a meshwork of possibilities and answers. Did this lead to clarification or confusion? As long as the ‘art’ word is thrown out it seems not to matter. Like a dance, the ‘moves’ are mostly forgotten but the urge to re-live the experience is strong. Perhaps it is in the conversation where the shift to the alternative space is made and where the imagination is truly exercised. For me, your radio shows especially encapsulate this space.
We talked about how to share work and about keeping some things secret. For an artist, the latest work is often the most exciting but it is also the most difficult to put into words. Frequently it is not understood, even by its maker. Your liver drawings contain personal and cultural secrets, the nature of which were unfamiliar to me. I was surprised by their contrast to the quiet demeanour of your radio shows, your work with natural healing and your Biographies which, as biological and mental essences, were ethereal. For this reason, the liver drawings were fascinating.
The dried blood and wrinkled paper evidence both the chosen material and the act of throwing it. The violence is palpably visible, hand-made, and performing on the surface. The liver, as material, is used to express how the mind and body feel and how they need to resonate outwardly. Engagement with any material reaffirms the trials and joys of being alive through making and touching with one’s hands.
And yet, how do the liver drawings come into balance with your other work? I began to see it as you opened the pages of the photobook. Delicate tree branches conversed with stains of flesh as they sat on opposite pages. On the wall, shapes of liver caught in a stop-motion sequence that mimicked amoeba floating and morphing like miniature clouds. The narrative of calm and violence mirrors not only the duality of nature itself but also the experiences and emotions that are lived throughout life.
Is there still a cultural misunderstanding about the meaning of magic? Possibly, but your work shows people a way to reconnect to nature and therefore how to reconnect to themselves. That’s got to be magic!
Cally
10th June 2022