The London-based artist speaks to Fetch once more following the opening of her latest solo show, Embodying Dissonance: A Journey Beyond the Norm at East London’s Seventeen Gallery, seeking to embrace imperfection and challenge superficiality.
Installation photography courtesy of Seventeen Gallery
“I’m always thinking about the norm and what kind of norms we have – do we need to obey them or must we create our own kind of norm?” Maya Golyshkina posits enthusiastically over Zoom, referring to the subject matter behind her most recent showing. Emphasising that it is not a departure nor a direct continuation of her previous work, she merely states that this exhibit was another opportunity for her to imaginatively employ her body as both her predominant tool and her primary source of inspiration. “In my work I am the main character, my body is the tool and my brain conjures up the idea,” she shares, “I work with my body a lot, I enjoy experimenting with it and it’s always the main theme in my work, whenever I’m creating a new show, it is always connected to the others in the respect that my body is the central focus of each one.”
The 23-year-old Russian artist's unwaveringly authentic and anatomical approach is as intriguing to onlookers as it is idiosyncratic. Each work she produces is suffused with a well-executed balance of eccentric innovation, a buoyant colour palette and a tongue-in-cheek sensibility that compels you to peer at each piece and grin quietly to yourself. Modulating from photography to painting to self-portraiture and the creation of bespoke wearable sculptures, there is little that Golyshkina won’t turn her hand to. The most impressive part? She learnt all of these skills completely on her own merit. “I’m a completely self-taught artist,” she explains, “I know that people see the DIY aspect in my work but this just comes from poverty really. This style was invented by having limited access to recyclable materials because growing up in Russia. I had my own world and my own tools.” This lack of resources and opportunity didn’t hinder Golyshkina's ability ambitions. “My perception is, the more boundaries you have the better your brain works. All of my self-portraits started during the lockdown mostly because the restriction prompted me to be resourceful. I just had my room and lots of different things lying around so I said let’s just experiment and try. But I didn't think it would go that well, you know?”
Indeed, in the time that has transpired since the lockdown began, Golyshkina has accomplished more than she had ever thought was imaginable. Her refreshingly whimsical self-portraits captured in her room soon attracted the attention of the internet and most especially, the Fashion industry. High-profile promotional collaborations followed in close succession, with the likes of Marc Jacobs, Balenciaga and Christopher Kane. Yet, even now, following her appearance in several magazine editorials and the unveiling of Embodying Dissonance: A Journey Beyond the Norm, the artist’s admirable work ethic shows no signs of dwindling.
From left to right: Maya Golyshkina, Cheese grater, 2021, Sad clown, 2022
“If I’m full of energy, or as you say, full of beans, motivation and inspiration come out of nowhere,” she explains, sharing her ambition to continue her endeavours in both the world of art and that of fashion. “Fashion really allows me to use my body in a different way, one that is both commercial and creative,“ she says, reflecting on what characterises her work for luxury brands. “It’s interesting if you can invent new ideas and create your own world and implement fashion tools into this process at the same time.”
Her latest exhibition certainly conveys the notion of creating her own world quite vividly and the artist is noticeably pleased at the result. “When Seventeen [Gallery] and Gertrude, invited me to do a solo show, I said yes, let’s do this and just started experimenting… using the same tools and approaches that I always have.” One particular medium that Golyshkina has branched out into through this showing is moving visuals, which can be seen in ‘mood of my life’ (2024), her singular collage of nine videos spliced together. “Ideally, I would concentrate more on videos later as that work is a bit more complex,” she says of the process, “I would love to eventually work on something on a bigger scale like music videos, I think it would be great to incorporate more movement into my work.” Alongside her signature utilisation and revitalisation of mundane, orthodox household items to turn them into something more visually arresting, another highlight of this exhibition is her distinctive infusion of personality which pervades each work “I reflect on every experience I have in my life and paraphrase it into something else– like my art. Any experiences, such as those I’ve had living in London, have granted me new perspectives that always subconsciously manifest into my work.”
Installation photography courtesy of Seventeen Gallery
Having been cast under the spotlight for four years now, Golyshkina has resolutely established which aspects of her process and her growing catalogue of work she does and does not favour. “A lot of people say that they love them, but honestly I hate artworks from when I first started. Now they just seem too simple to me. I really like my newer works, they are much more informed by fine art and are a lot more detailed. You notice elements in them such as set design and lighting, it doesn’t just look like an ordinary self-portrait in my room anymore, even though they are, in fact, still shot in my room.”
The use of art as a catalyst for change and a means to raise awareness is also of vital importance to Golyshkina. Having delved into matters including world hunger and over-consumption, the creative also has her sights set on female empowerment. “I’m a feminist and this means a lot to me, as a woman coming from a very patriarchal, conservative society, the involvement of bodily perception and empowerment is important in my work, as is the issue of age,” she divulges, “When I first started out with my self-portraits, I was only 18 or 19, and I was criticised a lot because of my age and the way I looked. I felt like I was fighting against the restrictive nature of society. I raise a lot of questions in connection with this in my work but people usually only see it on a very superficial level.”
She is also known for recycling discarded materials, celebrating ordinary objects by lending them a new, extraordinary lease of life.
“I’m not an activist but I do use household items in my art to highlight the fact that people just threw them away all the time. It’s crazy how you can instil a new meaning and life into something that people just throw away without a second thought. Why would I waste these things? People often don’t appreciate ordinary things, and what’s right in front of them and I think that this idea is really important to think about. It’s where a lot of my work finds its meaning.”
We conclude on an upbeat note, pivoting over to what the future may hold for the young artist. Does she have any dream collaborators? Is a change of scene on the cards? “I would love to collaborate with Michaela Stark, Nick Waplington and Harley Weir,” she responds, “Oh, and also Charlie Kaufman, who wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”
“It’s unpredictable what I’ll do next, you never know.,” she admits, “People say you never know what to expect from me but I don’t know what to expect from myself, to be honest. If I were to move now, to a tiny village or a new city, I would have an entirely different approach to my art.”
“I’m still experimenting, my latest works are by no means the pinnacle of my career. Oftentimes people take my work too seriously and aren’t open to my new pieces as they are still stuck on what I’ve done in the past. But I’m still figuring out my style and developing it all the time so it’s not that simple. I think that in today’s world it’s good to be flexible.”
Here’s to hoping that this journey of flexibility, exploration and experimentation takes her ‘beyond the norm,’ - whatever that may look like.
