About Katya Granova

Katya Granova is an artist and curator that was born in the USSR (currently Russia) and lives in London. She obtained a degree in Social Psychology, and gradually changed her career to an artistic practice. Granova holds an MA Art & Space Degree from Kingston University London, a Certificate degree from Paris College of Art, accomplished the ICA Moscow course “New artistic strategies' ' and received her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art. Recent exhibitions include Signature Art Prize Gala, London (2020), New Painting, Galerie Dutko, Paris (2020), and Nostalgia 2.0 The zombie stage, RED DOOR Project Space, London (2019). Granova is a current member and co-founder of the APXIV art collective, which has had many exhibitions over the last 4 years in Moscow, St Petersburg, Budapest, and Copenhagen.

She has held residencies with the Dukley Art Residence in Montenegro, Art Residency Normandy, the Beo-Project art residency in Belgrade, Serbia, and the Kunstarhuset Messen residency in Alvik, Norway. Granova was shortlisted for the Bankley prize 2019, Bridgeman Studio Award 2020, Art Rooms Award 2019, currently on the last selection stage of John Moores Prize 2020, and has won a Signature Art Prize 2020 in the painting category.

Katya Granova’s practice is structured as a dialogue with some pre-existing images and mostly using vintage photographs as a source image. She finds them fascinating for the unapproachable past they contain - this frozen moment you can see, but cannot interact with or touch, cannot intrude yourself in it. The artist was always amused with the fact that we base our reality, ideas, and identity on the past  - which we cannot access physically and have to lean on biased memories and documentations. "I use painting as a medium for physical interaction with the documentation of the past, so to say, I enlarge the image and paint over it, inserting my body presence into the image. Since my painting manner is very physical, visceral, it enters me into a speculative experience of the time machine."

As a child, Granova loved drawing over pictures in magazines, photographs, and pictures of people, giving her some kind of physical interaction with the image. This activity, combined with the reflections on history as an ideological tool brought her to her current practice. She takes imagery and documents the past, projects it on canvas and repaints it differently - in order to completely change and fictionalize it. This can be compared to a surgical intrusion into the body of the photograph or painting, or a speculative archaeological dig-site of the image. ‘I want to be there physically, to meet people from the past, to encounter different historical realities.  So I'm trying to bring my interaction with the photographs to a physical dimension, to implement myself into the image, the physicality of the process of painting and fight the oppressive time scale, where the past is always a closed country.’ In this way, the artist creates a portal to step or climb into a different time via the physical act of painting.

Education

Degree in Social Psychology

MA Art & Space Degree from Kingston University London

Certificate degree from Paris College of Art

ICA Moscow course ‘New artistic strategies’

MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art

Exhibtions

2020 

Signature Art Prize Gala, London

New Painting, Galerie Dutko, Paris

2019

Nostalgia 2.0 The zombie stage, RED DOOR Project Space, London

Residencies

Dukley Art Residence in Montenegro

Art Residency Normandy

Beo-Project art residency in Belgrade, Serbia

Kunstarhuset Messen residency in Alvik, Norway

Awards

2020

Won a Signature Art Prize 2020 in the painting category

Shortlisted for Bridgeman Studio Award 2020

Finalist of Castlegate Art Prize

2019 

Shortlisted for the Bankley prize 2019

Art Rooms Award