Maria Kulikovska

Visual Description: Twelve watercolors hang in a grid, attached to the wall with silver magnets on the two top corners. The works flutter slightly as visitors pass by—reflecting their precarity, The pieces from 888 and my beautiful. Wife? depict fragmented female bodies and body parts as torso, stomach, mid-section, pelvis, legs, buttocks, and crouched bodies with heads beyond the limits of the page. In fleshy pink, red, purple, and brown, these colors are associated with skin and bruising. One work diverts from the others, it is part of the series Saga about pregnant me and my pregnant husband and depicts a blonde pregnant woman with a flower on her stomach beside a man.

Wall Text: The twelve watercolor works from three series my beautiful. Wife? (2014), 888 (2018), and Saga about pregnant me and my pregnant husband (2021), reflect the artist’s life in exile since being forced to leave her hometown Crimea after it was annexed by Russia. Shortly after the annexation, Maria Kulikovska publicly declined an invitation to participate in Manifesta 10 in St Petersburg, and created a performance titled 254–the number given to her by the Ukrainian state to signal her refugee status. Often reactionary, Kulikovska’s work is centered on her own body and the bodies of women crossing borders, marked and injured by immigration, medical systems, and war. Her watercolors are sincere depictions of anxieties, but also physical manifestations of resistance and resilience while dealing with bureaucracy and societal expectations. In 2022 Kulikovska fled Kyiv with her newborn daughter and has been moving from one residency to another in Europe, returning to the Ukrainian capital on occasion to see her husband.

About

Maria Kulikovska (b. 1988) is a multimedia artist, architect, actionist-performer, researcher, and lecturer. She received a master's degree at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (2007-2013) in Kyiv, Ukraine, and has a second master’s degree in Fine Arts at Konstfack University, Stockholm, Sweden. Kulikovska was born in Kerch, Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Ukraine. Since the occupation of the Crimea Peninsula by the Russian Federation in 2014, Kulikovska hasn’t returned to her hometown. Kulikovska and her partner Oleh Vinnichenko, lived in Kyiv from 2018-2022, but due to recent events nearly one month after February 2022, Kulikovska fled Kyiv with her newborn daughter and has been moving from one residency to another in Europe, returning to the Ukrainian capital on occasion to see her husband.

In 2019, Kulikovska and her partner Oleh Vinnichenko (architect, engineer and production director of all artworks of MK+VOL Studio) founded the international non-binary art space GARAGE 33.Gallery-Shelter in Kyiv. From 2014 to 2023 MK+VOL Studio organized and created dozens of political performances and actions. The duo have participated in numerous international exhibitions and events of reputable cultural institutions and art collections, including: Accelerator Art Center, Stockholm, Sweden; Francisco Carolinum, Linz, Austria; Neue National Gallery, Berlin, Germany; Ludvig Museum, Budapest, Hungary; Q Collection, Budapest/Hong Kong; Saatchi Gallery, London, UK; Mystetskiy Arsenal, Kyiv, Ukraine; Crimean Platform, Kyiv, Ukraine; National Odesa Fine Arts Museum, Ukraine; Deutsche Art Collection Telekom, Bonn, Germany; Krolikarnia National Museum of Sculpture, Warsaw, Poland, among others.