Anastasia Slavnova. Reflections Automatic translate

Anastasia Slavnova’s work focuses on philosophical themes important to any thinking person. Perhaps the artist’s primary motif is the eternal battle between good and evil. "Following an inner impulse, I explore themes that resonate most deeply with my own personality. Guided solely by my own vision, I assign specific meaning to images, without considering how well they fit together within a generally accepted meaning," the artist says.

In the last century, photography and video technology were invented, and the horrors of the world wars led to a fundamental shift in the consciousness of survivors, and painting ceased striving for a literal depiction of reality. Artists turned to more complex subconscious and emotional processes. For example, Anselm Kiefer expresses existential experience using primordial, basic materials for humanity — clay, sand, wood, dry grass, and ash. Like an alchemist, he transforms textures into meaning. Anastasia Slavnova follows this tradition, using textures to construct images. First, she creates colorful chaos on canvas, then organizes it, reducing it to a predetermined plot.

The artist often uses unconventional tools, such as applying images with a rolling pin or a clothes roller. Ash, earth, moss, and tree branches are added to the canvas along with the paint. Recently, the artist has been experimenting with technique: her paintings are becoming more subtle and losing their three-dimensional structure. The color palette also changes, as she uses her own paints instead of industrial ones, combining natural pigments with a binder.

"Art doesn’t need a perfect form — it needs hundreds of forms, millions of modes of expression. Like life itself, it simultaneously contains both horror and beauty," reflects Anastasia, walking along the shores of Lake Ladoga with her dog, once rescued from cruel owners. These walks through desolate spaces, where human presence is only noticeable through the scattered trash, inspire her to reflect on the relationship and tension between humans and nature.

Driven by compassion for all living things, the artist follows these principles not only in her art but also in her life — she helps animals, clears the protected lakeshore of bags and bottles, and abstains from meat. She sees profound connections between the visible and the hidden and feels the need to reveal these connections. She conceptualizes the desolate spaces of her canvases as "psychological landscapes where images of nature help one escape the external and delve into the depths of consciousness, connecting with one’s inner self."

About the author

Anastasia Slavnova was born in 1994 in Perm to a designer family. She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering and lives and works in Saint Petersburg. She has exhibited in several group and solo exhibitions in Russia and Europe. Her first exhibition at Erarta, "Erasing Boundaries," was held in 2022.