Group exhibition 

"Buckhead Art & Co" gallery, Atlanta, Ga

September, 2026                                                                                                           

DISCARDED IDENTITIES

 

The concept of my project is a dialogue with the contemporary Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura. I have perceived Morimura’s work as decades of methodically dissolving the self into the identities of others—from Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo to Marilyn Monroe. In my view, each self-portrait was an act of escape from one’s own identity, achieved through virtuoso makeup, digital manipulation, and flawless staging.

 

Looking closely at Morimura’s artworks and immersing myself in them, I analyze and dissect the hidden motives underlying these transformations. Deeply affected by his work, I believe that understanding the essence of these transformations will open a path toward expressing my own thoughts and emotions. To this end, I developed a unique technique in which dried paint, peeled away from the surface and returned to the canvas, symbolizes the shedding of an alien skin, allowing the true image to emerge. Each canvas becomes a palimpsest through whose layers the true image gradually comes to light.

 

Morimura and I—a Japanese artist seeking liberation and meaning in Western art and pop culture, and a Russian artist who chose the Western world as the place to continue my life—both work in the space between civilizations. We both know what it means to be a “perpetual foreigner”: too Eastern for the West, too Western for the East. In this intricate play of reflections, I discover not another’s face, but my own, emerging through the layers of identities I have both adopted and rejected.