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Bio:
Ksenia was born in the city of Kamensk-Uralsky in 1994. Lives and works in Yekaterinburg. Ksenia studied at the Ural State University of Architecture and Art at the Department of Graphics and Animation. Participates in exhibitions since 2016.
Artist statement:
“Art is the labour closest to life”
I examines the compromises between fear and desire in my practice, composing narratives of horror and the absurd that reveal or conceal the vulnerabilities of individuals and society, hoping to find gaps for empathy. The confrontation between empathy and monstrous malignancies is often surreal and is carried out by characters from the my glossary — aesthetically pleasing, like the swan; absurdist tricksters, like the Worm; and eerie and sinister, like the Flower Monster.
The backdrops for the creatures' actions can become independent — then landscapes, swamps, and haunted houses take on life and their own story.
I actively apply film methodologies, as puppet animation with fabric marionettes has become my initiating medium. Static must also last. Narrative, method, and material are the foundations that form the concept.
My early works represented the phenomenon of “the mental through the physical” followed by a period of “overcoming corporeality” due to fatigue with the label. Regardless, I retained the corporeal element in graphics, but modified an approach to it in objects.
I work with installation and sculpture in mixed media (fabric, silicone, epoxy resin, wax, and plasticine), oil pastel graphics, stop-motion animation and video art, and digital art, including 3D modeling and AI.
Personal exhibitions:
2019 “(inside)out”, Center of the City Culture, Perm.
2018 “Duality and the Gap”, Center for Contemporary Dramaturgy, Yekaterinburg.
2017 “Altar for the slaughter of hands”, Cultural Transit Foundation, Yekaterinburg.
Residencies:
2025 Laboratory of the XVI Krasnoyarsk Museum Biennale “The Principle of Hope”, The Ploschad Mira Museum Center, April.
2024 — 2025 Residency in workshops of Garage museum, Moscow, October-January.
2023 Digital residency “Phygital Bodies in Speculative Landscapes” by CCI Fabrika and 8xr.
2022 — 2024 Residency in workshops of The Ural branch of The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.
2021 Residency “Black cube/White box”, Meyerhold Theatre Center, Moscow, 13.11 — 22.11.
2018 Art Residency during October, 2025 Kunst und Kultur gallery, Hamburg, Germany.
Some group exhibitions, biennials:
2025 “Zybko” installation, XVI Krasnoyarsk Museum Biennale, The Ploschad Mira Museum Center, 25.09.2025 — 15.02.2026.
2025 “Little Cryptid” for “EcoArt. art and (non)human agency'', Museum of Nonconformost Art, Saint Petersburg, 6.09 — 09.11.
2024 “I love you, don’t be afraid of anything”, Art Gallery of the Yeltsin Center, Yekaterinburg.
2024 “Archipelago of Dreams”, Sinara Gallery, Yekaterinburg, 07. 02 — 26.05.
2024 “Myths and Reality Lessons”, Ural Vision Gallery, Yekaterinburg, 02.02 — 20.04.
2023 “Don’t trust silence, it’s deceptive”, contemporary art center “Byl’”, Stary Oskol, 20.04 — 20.07.
2022 “Swamping the guise” joint exhibition with artist Svetlana Spirina, curated by “Temporary Solution”, Museum “Metenkov’s House”, Yekaterinburg, 27. 10 — 25. 12.
2022 Partisan street art festival “Carte Blanche”, Yekaterinburg.
2022 Uralskaya Kvartirale, Yekaterinburg, April.
2022 “Finding the sense of the body”, Sinara Gallery, 10.03 — 10.04.
2021 Partisan street art festival “Carte Blanche”, Yekaterinburg, 01.08 — 31.08.
2021 “Museum of Artificial History”, Darwin Museum, Moscow, 5.07-13.09.
2021 “What Mermaids Sing About”, Artetazh Museum, Vladivostok, 23.04-23.05.
2021 “New Painting of Yekaterinburg”, Art Gallery of the Yeltsin Center, 31.01 — 14.03.
2020 Video exhibition “Lightblick”, Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz, Berlin.
2020 “L’ŒIL CLOS, MONSTRES MERVEILLEUX”, Le Cyclop, Milly-la-Forêt, France, 27.06 — 27.09.
2019 “Better don’t touch it’, Issmag gallery, Moscow.
2019 2 5th Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art, main project, installation “Room”, Optical and Mechanical Plant; 2 unnamed installations, former cinema “Coliseum”, Yekaterinburg.
2019 “Klavier”, Apollo bar, Krasnodar.
2017 4th Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art, research project, installation “Visualization Blocks”.
2016 “Non-random connections”, Ural branch of the NCCA, Yekaterinburg.
Art Fairs:
2025 Contour fair, Nizhny Novgorod, 15. 05 — 18.05.
2025 ATRIUM, Yeltsin Center, Yekaterinburg, 15.02 — 16.02.
2024 |catalog|, Set Projects gallery stand, Moscow, 6.12 — 8.12.
2023 Port Art Fair, Sevkabel port, St. Petersburg, 26.05 — 28.05.
2020 BLAZAR Young Art Fair, Moscow 09.09-13.09.
Curatorial projects:
2024 ”Research Institute Filaretova. Yekaterinburg.”, Art Gallery of the Yeltsin Center.
2023 “Non-obvious responses”, exhibition based on the results of the laboratory with the inclusive project “Sketches”, Yeltsin Center, Yekaterinburg, 24. 03 — 11. 06.
2022 Project “Temporary Solution” together with Nikita Perfilyev.
2019 Rapid Response Group volume 1, Cultural Transit Foundation, Yekaterinburg.
Educational projects, workshops:
2022 Poetic image visualization laboratory for the “Think of Perm” project, PERMM museum, Perm.
2022 Art laboratory for the inclusive project “Sketches” at the Yeltsin Center.
2021 Workshop “Overcoming Corporeality” at the Art Gallery of the Yeltsin Center.
Performing expirience:
2023 Exhibition “Forms of Lived Abstraction” based on the results of the performative laboratory of Svetlana Spirina, Art center “Zarya”, Yekaterinburg.
2021 Performance by Svetlana Spirina “Atonia”, Art gallery of Yeltsin Center, Yekaterinburg.
Publications in russian:
Interview 2024: obdn.ru/articles/gde-sozdaetsya-krasota-v-masterskoy-ksenii-markelovoy-v-ekaterinburge
Special project with residents of the Garage Museum workshops:
Artist is represented by:
- НИША in Art gallery of Yeltsin Center, Yekaterinburg.
- Set Projects gallery, Moscow:
set-projects.ru/artists/ksenia-markelova/
- Open You gallery, Saint Petersburg:
openyou.gallery/kseniamarkelova
The artist’s artworks are in collections of:
- Center of the City Culture, Perm
- The Ploschad Mira Museum Center, Krasnoyarsk.
- The archive of Garage museum, Moscow.
And in private collections.