STATEMENT OF WORK

I paint on tablecloths, bedspreads and garments. The process by which I arrive at my paintings is like an archeological dig. A tablecloth is so much more than a square of linen. It is a receptacle for tears, shouts, blessings, curses. I place a human figure or portrait into a large manmade or natural landscape. In my work, a tablecloth or bedspread plays as much of a role as a forest or a desert.

I draw my imagery and ideas from overlapping cultures and languages. I was born in the former Soviet Union into an Ingrian-Finnish and Russian-Jewish family. Ingrian Finns are indigenous to the St. Petersburg area. They were persecuted many times throughout Russian history. There were some 160,000 Ingrians in Russia before the war. Now, there are fewer than 20,000. The Ingrian genocide is on the cusp of being forgotten, but my mother’s story lives on in me and my work. 

I have spent the past three decades weaving threads of this generational trauma, a history of arrests, deportations, and killings that continued deep into the Soviet era, into my paintings. When drawing on my Finnish roots, I think of cloth and what is revealed or hidden in its folds. When so much felt desolate, and when money and even food was hard to come by, my mother’s family turned to embroidery and sewing for survival, comfort, and even, when possible, joy.

When contemplating the concepts that come up in my art—female dependence and independence, beauty, violence, and vulnerability—I consider these questions: what does it mean to be abandoned by your country? How does strife shape the generations that follow it? How do we preserve the emotions of the past, or reconcile with the present?