Maria Kulikovska
Maria Kulikovska (b. 1988) is a Ukrainian multidisciplinary artist, architect, and lecturer. A refugee from her hometown in Crimea since its invasion in 2014, Kulikovska’s work can often be described as a meditation on war and bodily trauma, such as in her long term performance project Lustration / Ablution (2018 - present), in which the artist bathes herself and a sculptural copy. Kulikovska, with her partner Oleg Vinnichenko, often produces “Performative Sculptures” cast from her own body and filled with objects like flowers, chains or weapons, which may be burnt with flamethrowers or shot with shotguns.
On display is Kulikovska’s Letter to Eva, a suite of 24 watercolors dedicated to the artist’s newborn daughter. When Kulikovska was forced to flee Ukraine with her child, she instinctively grabbed her watercolors and a stack of Soviet-era architectural paper, feeling she would need to work. Produced during a nomadic period which saw Kulikovska travel with her child throughout Europe exhibiting her performance art, Letter to Eva explores the toll of war on the body and mind. Both gruesome and gentle, the series is both a lament for those who have been lost and a celebration of her daughter’s life. The work is accompanied by a poem by Kulikovska, which is included in the exhibition companion reader.
Maria Kulikovska has exhibited widely across Europe, including in recent solo presentations at Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Jøssingfjord Vitenmuseum in Norway, Weserberg Museum in Bremen, Double Q Gallery in Hong Kong, Francisco Carolinum Museum in Austria, and Accelerator Museum in Stockholm. Thousand Year Stare marks the artist’s first exhibition in the United States.
Letter to Eva, 2023. Watercolor on Soviet-era architectural paper, 24 works.
A4 format, 8.3 x 11.7 in (21 x 29.7 cm) each.
Letter To Eva
“When I look at you, I can't believe that you are a part of me, you came out from me. Now I can't imagine life without you. Sometimes I'm afraid to sleep – I do, afraid to lose time that I could spend with you. When we play, when we laugh – this is the purest laughter of my life. I dream that we will love each other all our lives, that we will be near and for each other. I can't imagine life without you. I'm afraid to think about war because it can take you from me and me from you, that's why we run… sorry we don't have a home, sorry I'm sheltering you, but I won't give you into the hands of war, I'll protect you until my last breath, to the last drop of blood… always… I am grateful to my mother for giving birth to me. I am grateful to my grandmother that she gave birth to my mother, who gave birth to me so that we could meet. I dream of giving only love, my beloved daughter… I'm sorry for the fact that your mother is an immigrant, a displaced, a refugee. I'm sorry that now you also live between borders. Sorry for this feeling of being not there, and not here either…
But together we are united, and we will cope with the embrace of war. I hope it won't crush us, and we will find our home… together.
I love you, my most precious woman, my daughter. I love you my most valuable woman, my mother. I love you, my most valuable woman, grandmother."
A Letter to Eva. Written on the island-former fortress of Suomenlinna in the heart of Helsinki, in the spring of 2023 during the opening of the HIAP [Helsinki International Art Program] open studios, which became another temporary shelter from September 2022 to September 2023 for Maria and Eva after the full-scale russian invasion in Ukraine.
- Maria Kulikovska