Viktoriya Basina

Viktoriya Basina creates work that provokes questions of sanctity, violence, and destruction that afflict our contemporary condition. Some of the work is presented as reinvented religious iconography to trouble what are traditionally considered sacred poses and gestures.. While at first seeming whimsical and attractive, the figures allude to warfare, militarism, consumption, and misogyny. What is currently idolized and glorified actually leads to incessant violence and intolerance. A people and culture obsessed with symbols of wealth, weapons, and entrenched gender roles. This mixed-media work is created with oil painting, inlaid mosaics, fused glass, vitreous enamel, and gold leaf on wood. This combination is indicative of how we invent strategies to cope with ongoing fragmentation and divisiveness.

The underlying concepts found throughout my work are the ideas of compassion, humanity, and humanism. I explore the relationship between the individual and the collective, through confrontations found in society, origin, mythology, and metaphysics. Inside human consciousness information or visual imagery can trigger a chain of involuntary memories and associations. I have an interest in gathering these assorted thoughts, symbols, recollections and encompassing them into one focal image. In recent work, I have incorporated mosaics, glass, vitreous enamel, and photography into my painting, creating mixed media work, alluding to fragmentation of space, imagery moved beyond painting, and a use of materials not traditionally shown together. My work is deeply influenced by my surroundings, the social climate, and the humanitarian discourse. I believe that its important to create society with central ideas of compassion and empathy. I have always built my artwork around these ideas and will continue to do so.