Young Russian Artists: The Rite of Spring

"The work ""Oasis"" is done based on a Marrocan inspiration. I recently returned from there and I started paying a lot of attention to my changing focus and scale of planning works in nature, it's intriguing. The ground has become especially important to me. I think about it a lot, both as a source of life and as an element. It really is a source of power that allows everything to regenerate infinitely and gratuitously. One time when I was buying pigments at the Moroccan market, lazurite, indigo, etc., it hit me that these are simply minerals mined in the Atlas Mountains. Which means that I, as well, use the resource of the earth to make my artwork, that I express my thoughts using it. It has become for me an almost ritualized, esoteric connection to nature.

Lithography requires a lot of experience and diverse knowledge. Not only you need to work it through your hands a thousand times to understand how exactly it works, but you also need to be familiar with chemical processes: how to prepare the stone, which pigment loses color the fastest, which paper is best. But sometimes you have calculated it all with precision, but the result is still different from what I expected. That unpredictability has its own charm, too. I work with Japanese pigments on Italian paper and Bavarian vintage stones". - Victoria Kosheleva, 2021.

Victoria Kosheleva was born in Moscow and splits her time between Paris and Moscow. In her artistic practice, Victoria combines contemporary and classical imagery. In one of her interviews, she described her work as "cyber expressionism." The subconscious plays an important role in her art and in her paintings she strives to create surrealistic worlds consisting of memories and fantasies, images and landscapes that are often taken out of their usual context. She often uses images of phone screens or movie screens and mirrors, all of which act as portals to the theatre of the unconscious. 

Accolades
Education: Free workshops, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, 2014-15. Parsons the New School of Design, 2012-13. V.Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute, Monumental Art, 2006-12.
Selected solo exhibitions: COSMOSCOW Contemporary Art Fair, Hors Cadre Gallery, Moscow, 2020. On the Waves, ArtTube, Kazan, 2019. Visions, Triumph Gallery, Moscow,  2017. UpRooted, Cite des Arts, Paris, 2017. FataMorgana, NII х Alpbau, Moscow, 2016. Atlas, The Foundation of Vladimir Smirnov and Konstantin Sorokin, Moscow, 2016. Open Call, Cite des Arts, Paris, 2015.
Selected group exhibitions: Galeristes Art Fair, Hors Cadre Gallery, Carreau du Temple, Paris, 2020. COSMOSCOW Contemporary Art Fair, Fabula Gallery, 2020. Da!Moscow Contemporary Art Fair, Triumph Gallery, Moscow, 2019. SOMETHING ELSE, Smena Centre of Contemporary Culture, Kazan, 2019. HORS-CADRE, Bastille Design Center, Hors Cadre Gallery, Paris, 2018. SOMETHING ELSE, Triumph Gallery, Moscow; National Center for Contemporary Art, Nizhny Novgorod; Victoria Gallery, Samara, 2018. Cabinet Da-End 08, Da-End Gallery, Paris, 2018. The Dog Buried the Bone, New Wing of Gogol House Museum, Moscow, 2017/ Seasickness, Frangulyan Gallery, Paris, 2017. New Space, Smena Centre of Contemporary Culture, Kazan, 2017; The Foundation of Vladimir Smirnov and Konstantin Sorokin, Moscow, 2016. Spatial Errors, GROUND Peschanaya, Moscow, 2016. NII Auction, NII х Alpbau, Moscow, 2016

@vika_kosheleva_
www.victoriakosheleva.com