Naia Viaznikova
Belarus, 1990
In my practice, I create spaces of silence and slowed perception – spaces in which familiar reality temporarily becomes less stable. I’m interested in the moment when the familiar can no longer be perceived unambiguously, and the boundaries between the real and the imagined, the human and the natural become permeable.
One source of this interest is a personal experience. As a child, I sometimes sleepwalked, experiencing a sense of being simultaneously here and somehow elsewhere. I used to find this state strange and unsettling, but over time I came to see it as a particular mode of perception – a state of quiet presence and a certain detachment from the surrounding space. Today, I don’t seek to depict this state literally, but rather to create its visual equivalent and allow the viewer to enter it for a while.
At the core of my imagery are processes of gradual transformation. A house becomes part of a forest, a human figure dissolves into plant forms, an animal turns into a flower, and a landscape begins to be perceived as an inner space. I’m interested not in the final transformation, but in the transitional moment when one form has already begun to become another while retaining a trace of its original state.
I work with acrylic, pastel, and charcoal, creating layered surfaces where the image simultaneously emerges, disappears, and changes. Blurred boundaries, overlapping forms, and varying degrees of visibility become part of the process of perception itself: the viewer first recognizes something familiar and then becomes less certain of what exactly they are seeing.
My works exist between figure and space, the real and the imagined, presence and absence. Through the gradual transformation of form, I seek to create spaces in which the gaze slows down, familiar boundaries become less defined, and the viewer can simply remain within the image for a while.
CV
Bio
Naia Viaznikova (b. 1990, Izmail, Ukraine) is a contemporary artist based in Novogrudok, Belarus. She works primarily with painting, drawing, and textile.
In her practice, Naia creates spaces of silence and slowed perception, where familiar reality gradually becomes less stable. She is interested in the gradual transformation of forms and transitional states in which one form begins to become another while retaining a trace of its original state. Through layered surfaces and a combination of acrylic, oil pastel, charcoal, and other materials, she creates spaces between the human, the natural, the architectural, and the imagined.
Naia developed her artistic practice through independent education, completing programs and courses at HSE University (Moscow), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the University of Melbourne.
Her work has been exhibited in Russia, the USA, and the UK, including Myths (St. Petersburg), The Art of Water (James May Gallery, USA), and Miami 3.0 / Art Basel Week (online, 2022).
She was a nominee for the Mellow Art Award (Tokyo). Her work and practice have been published in Art Hole Magazine and Ekphrasis Magazine.
Education
2021 – University of Melbourne (online), “Art and Gender”
2020 – School of the Art Institute of Chicago (online), “Modernism Tour: From French Avant-Garde to American Pop Art and Beyond”
2020 – Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) (online), “Contemporary Art and Ideas” (lectures)
2019 – HSE University, Moscow (online), “Contemporary Art” (lectures), “History of Design” (lectures)
Solo Exhibitions
2021 – ”From the inside” Artsteps (online)
Group Exhibitions
2026 – “Myths,” Bogi Gallery, St. Petersburg 2022 – ARTBOX.PROJECT Miami 3.0, online group exhibition during Art Basel Week 2021 – “The Art of Water,” James May Gallery, USA (online) 2021–2022 – “Starfall,” Zdes na Taganke, Moscow 2020 – “Conversation on Corporeality,” Moscow
Prizes & Awards
2021 – Nomination for the Mellow Art Award, Tokyo
Bibliography
2024 – Please See Me, Acceptance 2022 – Envision Arts Magazine, Issue 8 2021 – Ekphrasis Magazine, Issue “Winter” 2020 – Art Hole Magazine, Issue 4, London
IN STUDIO
with my paintings
