Her interest in archaic pre-Christian symbolism meets in her works with a new feminist femininity, themes of motherhood, marriage, childbirth — with an acute political contextualisation of the works and the courage to speak about them in the first person. The new textile objects become a symbolic bridge to her native language and culture for her growing daughter.

Working with textiles is an important activity. From a new feminist perspective, the work of actual women artists with textiles destigmatises this medium from the eternal «decorative and applied» and even purely domestic sphere into a full-fledged artistic statement, taking into account the centuries-old context of the relationship between women and textiles.

Embroidery with red thread and red colour is one of the main expressive techniques. It simultaneously refers the viewer to archaic, fertility cults, pagan embroideries, amulets, costume and to the
the new wave of feminism, in whose symbolism red is once again the colour of female corporeality, blood, procreation and pain.

By inserting a text, an inscription, a message into the immediate fabric of the image, the artist merges it with the image, so that the language becomes a pattern that dissolves into the folds of the costume, or a slogan that brings the content to the foreground. The artist’s signature embroidery font also refers to the archaic.

Olesia Avramenko
cultural critic, gender researcher, art historian