Painter Yekateryna Grygorenko aims to show the ugly, wrong, and disgusting aesthetics to the audiences, not the beauty and truth that they have been taught. By rejecting the reality we live in, she looks for a new reality within the frame of beauty coming to an end.  She focuses on death, birth, pain, lust, disgust, and desire. “The needlework in most of my works creates a life by referring to the sanctity of woman, mother, birth, and reproduction and I build my own game in it,” she said.

PERİ BAYAV

Izmir – We spoke to painter Yekateryna Grygorenko about her story with needlework, the concept of contempt, the image of women in art, and how she looks for a new reality within the frame of beauty coming to an end.

Who is Yekateryna Grygorenko?

I was born in 1996 in Mersin. I graduated from Dokuz Eylül University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Painting in 2019. Now I am completing my master's degree. I am a citizen of Ukraine but I grew up in Turkey. I have followed both cultures in detail since my childhood. I think I don’t have these cultures. I am neither Ukrainian nor Turkish. I am actually an individual having no identity.

How did your interest in needlework begin?

I've always had an interest in painting but not in needlework. In my mother's archives, there are pictures that I drew when I was very young. Needlework entered my works about five years ago. Because I didn’t like sewing. I found it very feminine. My mother and grandmother always pushed me to sew. But I didn’t want to. Because there is femininity that we have been taught and this femininity seems as wrong. When I was a child, I thought women were unwanted due to terrible incidents or realities that we were told. I thought that being a woman is a bad thing, then why I should act like a woman. But five years ago, I broke this bias and began to sew. First, I sew things for small sizes, for dolls. But then I wanted to bite off more than one can chew. Why not? Art is a battlefield for me. I should always fight to advance.

Which one comes first for you, painting or sewing?

I paint when I sew, I sew when I paint. Both have the same importance for me. I like interdisciplinary. I also take photos. All of them support me. If I make status for a while, I miss painting. Painting and sculpture have always been in my life. There wasn’t only sewing.

How do you create your works?

I mostly use American cloth and fiber in my works. I use thin American cloth for my sculptures and installation art. I use a thicker American cloth for painting. I use all kinds of paints in my paintings such as acrylic, oil, gouache, and pastel. I use acrylic to produce my sculptures and installations.

What do inspire you to produce your works?

The place I live in, my thoughts, foods, animals, flowers…But the most things that inspire me are my body and identity. For instance, a tree branch or tree root looks like a human body. This impresses me a lot; I use it in my works. I study on stones; I pay attention to their colors the most. The colors of some stones like the color of the dead body. When I see their colors, I want to use them in my works. I sometimes see red, purple, pink, and green stones and they inspire me. Art doesn’t have to show what is beautiful. Art doesn't have to tame audiences. Art then becomes free. The audiences don’t have to like my works, and I don’t have to produce what they like.

You have two different cultures, how do they reflect on your works?

Having two different identities uncovers the concept of unculture in my works. Unculture uncovers identitylessness. Because our culture is a huge part of our identity. If I lived in Ukraine, I would be a very different person. If I was only a Turkish citizen, I would be a very different person. I feel like I live nowhere now. For this reason, this surely reflects on my works. I like this.

Is the concept of beauty something learned or taught?

How must a woman be? How must a man be? How must a person, individual, human being be? As the answers to these questions, beauty, and ugliness are also something that we are taught. Beauty is only one of the things that we are taught.

If you could start everything from the beginning, would you still choose the same profession?

I think this question is the worst question because you start questioning yourself since you have to stay at home during the pandemic. You tell yourself that you have chosen a very difficult profession. You don’t think this when you are a child. My mother told me, “You will earn money if you work hard no matter what you do.” She still tells this. My mother and sister are musicians. I also played piano for a long time. I played volleyball for a while. While playing volleyball, I thought as if it would be my profession. But painting, it has always been in my life. So my answer is yes; I would choose the same profession.