Nina Murashkina

Nina Murashkina (b. 1985, Donetsk) creates sensual and metaphorical art, aiming to present a purely feminine perception of the world married with a deep understanding of classical art. Her style runs parallel to Ukrainian naive art pioneered by Maria Prymachenko and Kitsch, drenched in references to masterpieces of art history and mythology. The main topics of exploration in the artist’s work are sexuality, personal trauma, and cult psychology.

The subjects of her paintings and ceramic works are dubbed “goddesses,” women with ambiguous positioning, strong and weak at the same time with a snakelike plasticity and delicate sense. Murashkina and her female characters are integral to each other - her stories are the ones of her own experiences and metaphorical self portraits. She developed her feminine image at a young age from studying the elegance of women in Victorian literature, along with ghostly memories of late-Soviet life in her hometown of Donetsk.

Murashkina’s work celebrates the female form and divine femininity while also commenting on the complexity of love and relationships with men. The two genders can be found swimming through pools of violet hues in Murashkina’s Bless Me, Darling 2 (2022), a ceramic vase with intricate underglaze drawings. One one side of the vase are three female heads in profile overlayed on top of one another, decorated with intricate red and gold headpieces, flowers, and jewelry. Their gaze leads to a depiction of Jesus, draped in a red sash and adorned with gold accents. To his immediate left are the words “Bless me, darling” written in gold. The sirens swim around him singing these words, and using their power of attraction to get what they want - even within this religious context where flirtation and sexuality is inappropriate and sinful.

In a similar fashion to Jesus, the sirens are embellished with golden nipples - a common motif in the work of Murashkina, who frequently paints eyes on nipples and sees them as an image of hypersensitivity. The vase is finally crowned with a spherical golden ornament, emulating the form of a nipple.

Murashkina has exhibited widely across the world, including in solo shows in London and Barcelona. In 2022 her work was featured in the SCOPE Miami booth of Lysenko Gallery.