One of my favorite honest interviews. Thank you Tatyana Kiselchuk.
Nina Murashkina is a Ukrainian artist and a member of the Union of Artists of Ukraine (youth association). She graduated from the Donetsk Art School, the Kharkiv Academy of Design and Arts, the workshop of V.N. Hontarov, the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture, and the Krakow Art Academy by Jan Matejki. The works were exhibited at the Mystetsky Arsenal, the Yermilov Center, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Vozdvizhenka Arts House, etc. Now, a personal exhibition is being held at Pavlo Gudimov’s art center, “Ya Gallery.”
My dad would send little me to buy some bread. Before leaving, I asked him, “What about the money?” Dad answered, “With money, anyone can do it! Just try and bring bread without money!” So, I’m trying to get bread without money during my art activity. I work hard. I may not leave the house for a week until I finish the painting. And when I go out, I relearn how to live and talk to people. It’s like I jump out of a window and survive.
A series of destructive and deviant practices follow me, but I try to keep it in check. I'm getting deep into creativity. Creativity is confessional and life-affirming.
The drooping sides of women and men look beautiful to me and take on an image. Tired after a shift at a fish factory, the ladies are unusually expressive; they frantically paint their lips with purple lipstick before entering the stuffy, sticky minibus. Over time, even Pavlo Gudimov’s checkered shirt became clear and good to me. Being an artist is very interesting. Everything around turns into art.
I'm prone to bad things. I have vices that I carefully protect myself from. I hold back on alcohol. I regularly watch biopics about alcoholic actresses and singers. For example, as a child, I liked the Soviet actress Ekaterina Vasilyeva. Now, she is completely devoted to the church. And she spent the middle period of her life in revelry and drinking alcohol. I am prone to a certain type of “bad boys” men; if you put my ex-boyfriends in the same line now, it will seem like they are brothers. A series of destructive and deviant practices follow me, but I try to keep it in check. I leave them for creativity. Creativity is confessional and life-affirming.
Each artist has their own development path. For example, one talented friend of mine preferred painting icons to secular art. I really support her in this — tremendous and bright work.
It is necessary to make art history a compulsory subject with an exam starting from school — and even better, from introductory lessons in kindergarten. Then, people will be hardened and prepared to perceive exhibitions of classical and contemporary art. To popularize it, I would like to hear more live conversations with authors in a calm, unhurried manner on every radio and TV channel, in addition to announcements. This requires sensitive interviewers, and there are few of them.
Time spent at canvas is immortality.
I haven’t noticed how the world of Ukrainian art has changed since I started painting. I live an inner life, and there are a lot of changes. Everything has become more confident and justified.
I live from the sales of my artwork. Every year of my activity, there are more fans of my art. There are also more willing and buying people.
Marquez and his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude have been my reference book since I was 13. The bed scenes are compelling and mystical. I love Yesenin passionately now: “Ocean blue jersey and the eyes dark blue. To my sweetheart, really, told I no truth…” My heroines often have no eyes, or they later appear but in some unexpected places: on their hands, nipples, etc. Firstly, this is the medieval “marriage without looking,” when people could look at each other for the first time almost on their wedding night. Secondly, the eyes are the soul. But the soul in my paintings appears spontaneously; often, there can be a lot of it, and sometimes it can be unnoticed. In any case, all the details in my works are not accidental.
My dad would send little me to buy some bread. Before leaving, I asked him, “What about the money?” Dad answered, “With money, anyone can do it! Just try and bring bread without money!” So, I’m trying to get bread without money during my art activity. I like to use allusions and references to ancient art and literature in my works. For example, one of my first paintings tells the story of the Old Testament character King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. She came to visit him so that they could reunite. He had heard that she had unearthly legs and prepared for her arrival. He made a glass floor in the castle under which horrible fish swam. She got scared and lifted the hem of her dress, revealing her legs covered with hair to his gaze. So their love began when he sent her a remedy for this cover. My painting is called “Depilation or the Legs of the Queen of Sheba.”
I hope Stas Volyazlovsky will forgive me. I was the curator of the “Golden Rain” exhibition in 2014, and Stas was one of the first to agree to participate in it. He exhibited photo-self-portraits of a phallus with small ducks swimming between them. We discussed a lot on the phone; at first, everything was fine. But then I sent him a photo of the exhibition, and he was terribly unhappy. He insisted that an air gun and binoculars were provided so the public could aim at the ducks. He didn’t like the gun, and we didn’t have time to get binoculars. Stas was so annoyed that he did not take back his artworks, and they sank into oblivion.
The main purpose of existence is to do what you can as efficiently as possible. Identify your talent and carry it with dignity. “Insatiable” is the central figure, the art object, in my latest exhibition. It is a doll with a huge mouth and bust, a long black body like a worm, and legs suspended from the ceiling. She drinks tea or vodka, and she feels either good or bad. This is my main goal — the contradiction of feelings. Clean floors are important. The work begins with washing the floor.
