In the series Judith from Krasnoarmeyskaya, 94, I deconstruct mythological narratives through the optics of a woman - and that alone is already enough to create static in perception.


In my reading of the myth, Judith may have beheaded herself, telling the whole world about the impossibility of living with a constant sense of guilt - guilt over the decisions we make, over the responsibility of being a woman and a mother. Narcissus feels guilty for his beauty. Rhea, for her failure to protect her children from Cronus. Danaë and Leda, for their affairs with Zeus. All of them are relocated into the present, into a commonplace. The address ‘Krasnoarmeyskaya, 94’ exists in 2,020 different towns - I lived at one of them.

Reflection is central to this series - my starting point is a set of self-portraits made in a mirror. In these reflections, anything can happen, and a negative miracle (Narcissus’s blindness, for instance) isn’t explained. It simply occurs.

Plain language: I paint myself in the mirror as mythic figures - Judith, Narcissus, Danaë - and reconsider their experience of miracle, guilt and punishment through my own life onto an ordinary street with an ordinary house number.