- Venue
- Schtager&Shch
- Starts
- Wednesday, August 30, 2023
- Ends
- Thursday, September 7, 2023
- Address
- 51-53 Margaret Street, London W1W 8SQ
- Location
- London
- Organiser
- Shtager&Shch
13 September – 6 October 2023
Preview: Tuesday 12 September, 6-9pm
Shtager&Shch is pleased to present a new body of work by Katya Granova who moved from St Petersburg to London in 2017.
Granova’s practice explores the fallibility of personal memory and collective history and the intersection at which both meet. Initially turning to family albums in search for cultural belonging as a recent immigrant, she has more recently expanded her subjects to anonymous vintage photographs.
Katya Granova describes her life-size paintings as portals to the past. Working from black and white photographs, she inserts herself through the use of colour and propels historical scenes into the present. By selecting ubiquitous settings of bathers or celebrations, her subjects are at once individual and universal.
Soldiers are another recurring subject in Granova’s work, who was born in the Soviet Union shortly before its transition to capitalist Russia. Found in photo albums of many families on either side of any conflict, the military references highlight the inseparability of the personal and the political.
As an artist of both dual Russian and Ukrainian heritage the dilemma of national identity has become inescapable for Katya Granova. She has volunteered extensively to support Ukrainian refugees before launching her own initiative set up specifically to support other artists to apply for a talent visa that allows them to pursue their practice in the UK.
Gallery open times: Wednesday-Friday 11am-6pm; Saturday 11am-5pm
