Katya Granova

Katya Granova (b.1988) is an artist and curator from St. Petersburg, Russia, who currently lives in London. Her first degree was obtained in social psychology, after some time, she gradually changed her main focus to  her artistic practice. Granova  holds an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London (2021), a Certificate degree from Paris College of Art (2015), an MA Art and Space Degree from Kingston University London (2013), and finished the ICA Moscow course "New Artistic Strategies" in 2017. Recent exhibitions include "When my Babushka joined the Reich", Barbican Art Group Trust, London (2022), London Grands 2021, Saatchi Gallery, London (2021), and Fractures of the lense, Burgh House (2022). She has held art residencies with the Barbican Art Group Trust (2022), Sommer Atelier Aschersleben (2022), Dukley Art Residence in Montenegro (2020), Sphera Fund Moscow (2021), and Art Residency Normandy (2020). Granova was shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize 2020 and the Bankley Prize 2019, was a finalist for the Castlegate Art Prize (2020), Art Works Open (2021), and has won the Signature Art Prize 2020 in the painting category. In 2020, she also collaborated with Burberry UK on a commercial project, and in 2021, the Royal College of Art bought the work "Surgeons" for their public collection. 

In her painting practice she uses old photographs as base compositions for large scale visceral paintings. For Granova the act of painting is a performative bodily intrusion into the documentation of someone else’s unapproachable past to give it a fictional dimension and reapproach the concept of historical memory.

«My practice is always structured as a dialogue with some pre-existing image, mostly I’m using old photographs. I access 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 and approaching my canvas a portal in a different era. Since my painting manner is very physical, visceral, it enters me into a speculative experience of the time machine. »

EDUCATION
2018 - 2021 Royal College of Arts, MA Painting
2015 - 2017 ICA Moscow, "New Methods in Contemporary art" Certificate program in fine art ICA Moscow
2014 - 2015 Paris College Of Art, Certificate program in fine art
2012 - 2013 Kingston University London, MA Art and Space
2005 - 2011 St Petersburg State University, Department of Psychology, Specialist degree in Social Psychology

AWARDS
2021 ArtWorks Open, Barbikan Arts Group Trust (Solo Residency Award), UK
2020 Signature Art Prize (Painting Prize winner), UK
2020 John Moores Prize (longlisted), UK
2020 Castlegate Prize (shortlist and exhibition), UK
2020 Bridgeman Studio Award (shortlisted), UK
2019 Bankley Art Prize Manchester (shortlist and exhibition), UK
2019 Art Rooms Award (Group Show Award), UK

EXHIBITIONS
Personal and two-artists projects
2022 When my babushka joined the Reich, ArtWorks Project Space, Barbican Arts Group Trust, UK
2022 Fractures of the lens(with Simon Hodgkinson), Burgh House, London, UK
2022 Picnic in July, 1937, Open Studios, Winzavod CCA, Moscow, RU
2021 Act 1. Scene 5. Room in the Castle (with Anna Tagantzeva-Kobzeva), Smirnov Sorokin Fund, Moscow, RU
2020 Atelier by the Police bridge, Duckley Project Gallery, Budva, ME
2018 Voyariste’s attic, FFTN Gallery, St Petersburg, RU
2016 Oilcloth, Gallery Art-League, Pushkinskaya 10 Museum, St Petersburg, RU
2016 Communal paradise lost, Gallery Beo-Project', Belgrade, RS
2016 Advantages of spiders (with Pyotr Shvetsov) Gallery Luda, St Petersburg, RU
2016 Something is getting out, Gallery «Intimnoe mesto», St Petersburg, RU

EXHIBITIONS CURATED
2019 Nostalgia 2.0 The zombie stage, RED DOOR Project Space, London, UK
2017 Then it was unknown to us, Moscow International biennale for young art, parallel program, Poligraphicheskii tzeh, Moscow, RU

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 Power to emotions, Tart Gallery, London, UK
2022 Little explosions, The Bomb Factory South, London, UK
2022 Overwhelming majority, Schtager Gallery, London, UK
2022 Demolution, K.L.8, Brussels, BE
2022 A room of her own, Irving Contemporary, Oxford, UK
2021 Marvels of reason, Ural Vision Gallery, Yekaterinburg, RU
2021 ArtWorks Open 2021, Barbikan Arts Group Trust, London, UK
2021 London Grads Now.21, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
2021 Yield, No 20 Arts Gallery, London, UK
2021 Things that were about to be lost, RuptureXIBIT, London UK
2021 RCA 2021 Painting and Sculpture Satellite Show, Cromwell place, UK
2021 New Arrivals, Castlegate House Gallery, UK
2020 New Painting, Galerie Dutko, Paris, FR
2020 Night in Montenegro, Cetinje Art Museum, Cetinje, ME
2020 Stretching arms, A women thing project, online show, New York, USA
2020 Equalism, White cube foundation, Moscow, RU
2020 Signature Art Prize Gala, Somerset house, London, UK
2019 Playground, Venue MOT, London, UK
2019 Art Rooms Award, Le Dame Gallery, London, UK
2019 London Ultra, Bargehouse- OXO Tower Wharf, London, UK
2019 Bankley prize, Bankley gallery, Manchester, UK
2019 Sinergic, The Old Biscuit Factory, London, UK
2019 GIFC, House of Vans, London, UK
2019 Nostalgia 2.0 The zombie stage, RED DOOR Project Space, London
2019 10 hours of sun in January, FFTN gallery group show, Austrian consulate in Moscow
2019 WiP show, Royal College of Arts, Sackler building, London
2019 Impostesse - The ghost of gender, Pig Snout Gallery, St Petersburg
2018 Beach, Dukley art centre, Montenegro
2017 Paradise papiers, Galerie le garage, Lorgues, France
2016 It can exist, Rabochii i Kolchoznitsa exhibition centre, MVO Manezj, Moscow
2016 Then it was unknown to us, Moscow International biennale for young art
2016 II, Omelchenko Gallery, Moscow
2015 Les Closharts Celestes, Art Space Albatros, Paris, Montreuil, France
2015 7+/-2 - an exploration of memory, Gallery Le Pavais d’Orsay, Paris, France

EXHIBITIONS WITH APXIV ART COLLECTIVE (CO-FOUNDER AND MEMBER SINCE 31/12/2016)
2021 Goathotspot, Assuming the distance: speculatons, fakes, and predictions in the age of the coronacene, group exhibition, Garage Museum, Moscow, RU
2021 Re:Beuys, Multulocation project (CCI Fabrica, Moscow, Edel Extra, Nurnberg) funded by Goethe Institute in Moscow
2019 Curatorial forum (with solo-performance ''Existential Services Agency''), St Petersburg, RU
2019 Communities and Spaces group exhibition. Winzavod, Moscow, RU
2019 Distributed Bar System at the Opening of Copenhagen Art Week. Within Copenhagen Art Week. Copenhagen Contemporary, Copenhagen, DK
2019 In Your Trace: the Inspirational Forces in Russian and Hungarian Contemporary Art. Within Budapest Art Week. Mikve Gallery, Budapest, HU
2018 Cosmoscow Talks, Cosmoscow Art Fair, Gostinyi Dvor, Moscow, RU
2018 APXIV24, 24-hours group performance, Parallel program of The Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, APXIV artist-run space, Moscow, RU
2018 Baikonur, APXIV in association with the Austrian Consulate, APXIV artist-run space, Moscow, RU

RELATED COMMERCIAL PROJECTS
2020 Burberry, collaboration for Burberry Social Project, providing image for brand's official Instagram

FAIRS
2021 Blazar Art Fair, Moscow, RU
2020 S.T.A.R.T. Art Fair, represented by Shtager Gallery, London, UK
2019 SAM-fair, St Petersburg, RU

RESIDENCES
09/09/2022 - 20/10/2022 Art Works Open, Barbican Arts Group Trust, London, UK
01/06/2022 - 31/08/2022 International Summer Residency Aschersleben, Aschersleben, DE
01/12/2021 - 10/02/2022 Open Studios Winzavod CCA, Moscow, RU
16/01/2021 - 16/02/2021 Smirnov Sorokin Fund, Moscow, RU
27/10/2020 - 01/12/2020 Art Residency Normandy, FR
01/06/2017 - 01/07/2017 Duckley art residence (curated by Marat Guelman), Kotor, ME
01/05/2016 - 11/06/2016 Beo-Project art residency, Belgrade, SE
01/12/2016 - 27/12/2016 Kunstarhuset Messen residency, Alvik, NO

PUBLICATIONS
Contemporary Art Keen Enthusiast, article
Islington Gazette
Tzvetnik
A woman's thing, interview
Zima Magazine (in Russian)
Artandyou (in Russian)

Works are held in several private collections in the UK, France and Russia, in 2021 Royal College of Art acquired work “Surgeons” in their public collection

CV

Representation

Shtager&Shch