Katerina Belkina

Series: Revival

The search for human identity is undergoing an apotheosis in her latest, on-going series. The Revival (2014-15) series opens with three works featuring motherhood. The first two works show the expectant mother; these are respectively entitled “The Sinner” and “Entreaty”. The third and most recent work, “Vesna”, Spring, shows the woman as Madonna Lactans, as the Nursing Mother.
She views the works in which she portrays the woman as pregnant and breastfeeding as metaphors for spiritual growth and giving real meaning in a predominantly material world in which individuality reigns supreme. She uses the title Revival to refer to a reverse Renaissance; a liberation from the consumer society with all its associated materialism. Although the child may not be actually present in the works, the implicit reference to its existence appeals to a primal central idea of our humanity. It awakens our feelings of expectation and care, issues that raise us above the almost narcissistic individualism of today. Humankind thus becomes a being that seeks connection to the bigger picture, to the universal that underlies existence. In this series, too, Belkina is referring to a generally applicable fact, while simultaneously touching on the personal. The artist was pregnant herself when she began this series.