Site-specific installation, 2026
Materials: Belarusian soil, soil extract in a hand-blown glass flask, glass, textile, sound
Kunsthaus Graz, Needle
Graz, Austria
ZIAMLIAČKA
The fourth year of forced exile feels like utter depletion. It is a loss of all strength — a state in which I can do nothing but lie down and cry. And then I realized: grounding comes not only from people, but also from the ground beneath our feet. Those who have never lost their soil might not understand the ache of its absence, or the way it holds us.
My mother dug up 225 kilograms of soil from the plot where our ancestral home stood. Now there is only a void. The soil crossed borders under constraint, with great effort. My ritual of intimacy with what is lost is radical: I am regaining a sacred space through enfleurage. I extract the scent from the soil, forcing fat and ethanol to absorb the aroma of what cannot be taken away. This extract is a form of my memory, an attempt to regain the lost peace.
By the end of 2024, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide had reached 123.2 million. My glass bottle is their shared silent prayer for the soil that no longer holds them.
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My mother dug up 225 kilograms of soil from the plot where our ancestral home stood. Now there is only a void. The soil crossed borders under constraint, with great effort. My ritual of intimacy with what is lost is radical: I am regaining a sacred space through enfleurage. I extract the scent from the soil, forcing fat and ethanol to absorb the aroma of what cannot be taken away. This extract is a form of my memory, an attempt to regain the lost peace.
By the end of 2024, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide had reached 123.2 million. My glass bottle is their shared silent prayer for the soil that no longer holds them.
Oil on canvas, wooden frame, cardboard, crutches, bandages,
197 × 98 × 20 cm, 2026
Homeless
This work transforms a fractured frame supported by crutches into a surrogate living body. Bound with medical bandages and cardboard, the sculptural painting seeks to give physical form to both the internal psychological state and the external social reality of homelessness.
Object / sculptural painting
oil, acrylic and polymer coating on plaster-bandage form; embroidered fabric bandage, used wheelchair, plastic sheeting
120 × 70 × 90 cm, 2025
Status Quo
Positioned in a used wheelchair, this immobilized entity acts as a silent witness to forced helplessness. Medical bandages bind a collapsing plaster form, while a simulated wound seeps through an embroidered national symbol. In this sculptural object, Belarus is presented as a fractured reality: the national emblem becomes a direct metaphor for a "frozen future" and "prolonged agony." Deeply rooted in the socio-political context of contemporary dictatorship, the work reflects an identity that is desperately struggling for physical and cultural survival.
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Oil on canvas, 86 × 69 cm, 2024
Political Prisoner Painting
In the Belarusian penitentiary system, yellow tags function as a tool of dehumanization, marking political prisoners for intensified surveillance and continuous psychological pressure. I created this painting not merely as an image, but as documentary evidence: it is based on the actual prison uniform that Viktor Parkhimchyk managed to secretly smuggle into Poland following his release. By transforming an element of a repressive uniform into an art object, I bring hidden violence into the public sphere. The yellow tag on the canvas becomes for me simultaneously a physical archive of pain, an instrument of biopolitics, and a symbol of unyielding resistance against dictatorship.
hard plastic in wooden frame, 90 × 65 cm, 2024
Purge / Ačystka / Təmizləmə
This work visualizes the universal mechanics of political purges, demonstrating how repressive apparatuses employ similar algorithms of suppression regardless of geographic boundaries. Originating from a private tragedy—the story of an Azerbaijani scientist unjustly accused of state treason—I build a bridge of solidarity with victims of terror in Belarus and other authoritarian states. The rigid, restrictive plastic, resembling a garbage bag that conceals a voice, functions in my work as a direct physical metaphor for systemic isolation, where the freedom of human thought collides with the impenetrable rigidity of the state machine.
mixed media on canvas, 96 × 76 cm, 2025
Lack
Consider this physical rupture, which violently disrupts the illusion of the canvas's flawlessly smooth surface. Drawing on the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, I explore the idea that the subject is formed not through the attainment of wholeness, but through the experience of fundamental lack. This yawning void is not a defect, but an intrusion of the "Real" that resists any symbolic order and prompts the viewer to mentally reconstruct the missing fragment. The rupture is not an act of destruction; for me, it is a generative gesture. It is precisely through this fissure that the energy of transformation breaks through, proving that our identity is defined not by what we possess, but by what we are irreversibly deprived of.
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plaster bandage form, pastel, oil, resin coating, 122 × 102 cm, 2024
Amputation of Roots
The medical materiality of the plaster and polymer coating captures the somatic memory of a painful rupture. Amputation here symbolizes both my personal experience of forced emigration and the collective Belarusian trauma of violent separation. The severed portion embodies a past that can no longer be integrated into reality. However, the remaining wound is not only a gaping absence, but also a space for the genesis of a new, hybrid identity. By transforming pain into an act of survival, this work bears witness to human resilience in the face of repressive systems that vainly demand absolute silence.
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oil on canvas, 120 × 100 cm, 2025
The Consequences of Love
According to the concept of Jacques Derrida, all love is a dispatched letter that perpetually risks never reaching its addressee. In this work, the delay of a response materializes in a corporeal form as a "trace-scar"—a trembling anticipation that settles deep within the flesh. I transform the canvas into a tense topography of the "postal logistics" of human emotions, capturing the moment when the sweetness of a touch and the horror of an open wound become aesthetically inseparable. The threat of disappearance triggers a physiological spasm and tissue scarring: it is precisely within this extreme tension that love affirms its frightening authenticity.
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plaster bandage form, pastel, resin coating, 122 × 102 cm, 2024
Vycinanka (ad slova cisk)
The traditional Belarusian vycinanka—the art of cutting paper patterns—has historically served as a marker of collective memory and the fragile balance between presence and emptiness. In this work, the ornamental folkloric code, inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list, is reimagined through the physiology of violence. By imitating the texture of subcutaneous hematomas on a flesh-like canvas, I transform decorative elements into an archive of pain. The bluish discoloration caused by external pressure (Belarusian: cisk) acts as a visual trace of political repression, demonstrating how national identity utilizes tradition to resist attempts at its physical erasure.
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plaster bandage form, pastel, oil, resin coating, 66 x 50 cm, 2024
Spleen
This deeply autobiographical work is dedicated to my surgically removed spleen—a silent internal organ with a profound cultural echo. In the Western European literary tradition, the word "spleen" has served for centuries as a synonym for inescapable melancholy and existential fatigue. In my practice, I translate this abstract poetic concept back into the realm of vulnerable corporeality. The compressed layers of medical plaster and resin in this work force the viewer to confront the question: what is it like to permanently carry within one's body the physical absence of an organ that global culture has endowed with such colossal semantic weight?
oil on fabric, framed canvas, 113 × 85 cm, 2024
Cocoon
In nature, a cocoon is traditionally associated with metamorphosis and protection; however, in this work, it acts as a heavy metaphor for internal struggle and total isolation. By concealing the true contents behind impenetrable folds of fabric, I force the viewer to balance between the claustrophobia of a shelter and vulnerability to an aggressive external world. With this object, I offer a quiet, introspective reflection on where the invisible boundary lies between the attainment of long-awaited freedom and the agonizing process of experiencing pain.
mixed media on canvas, 60 × 50 cm, 2024
Touch
Touch is investigated by me as a point of no return—a fragile boundary between the invasion of personal space and irreversible transformation. An encounter with the "other" inevitably shatters our illusory integrity. The artwork visualizes this contact as a sudden fissure through which light penetrates, or as a traumatic wound requiring a prolonged healing process. By dismantling the familiar, rigid architecture of the self, I seek to prove that the most profound touches from the external world force us to re-encounter ourselves and radically reconceptualize our own identity.
Canvas, wood, fire, oil, resin coating, 110 × 80 cm, 2024
Inventory Number
The burned, fire-scarred surface of the canvas and the dry, bureaucratic stamp of an inventory number collide in this work. The digit serving as the inventory number represents the exact number of democratic countries versus dictatorships—out of 167 calculated—at the time the painting was created. Fire acts as an uncontrollable elemental force, while the number symbolizes the attempt by institutional power to classify, control, and sterilize the chaos of human experience, classifying that which is no longer fit for life and is marked to be burned.
mixed media (cement and silicone), 96 × 76 cm, 2024
Sensitivity
Consider the paradoxical physical coexistence of two opposing materials. Rough industrial cement embodies rigidity, stability, and permanence, while soft silicone symbolizes the vulnerability and flexibility of the human psyche. I utilize this material dichotomy as a metaphor for the duality of human nature. The wounds and cracks on the surface document the process of internal growth, serving as a reminder that genuine resilience is often born precisely from the capacity to acknowledge and endure one's own fragility under conditions of total external pressure.
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barbed-wire crown with two suspended glass tears, 25 × 23 cm, 2022
Crown of Sorrow
This object, austerely woven from barbed wire and crowned with heavy glass tears, refers to the universal iconography of martyrdom. This work was created in solidarity with political prisoners worldwide. It transforms a direct instrument of penitentiary control into a coronation of grief and indestructible human dignity, demonstrating that even under conditions of absolute captivity and terror, human dignity remains unbroken.
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delicate net fabric, 600 × 600 cm, 2022
Captivity
This large-scale, six-meter installation made of delicate netting, simulating a giant mourning veil, creates a jarring visual contrast with the barbed wire pattern woven into it. This work is my monumental act of mourning and solidarity with Belarusian political prisoners—those who found themselves in dungeons for their commitment to humanity and their struggle for freedom.
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mixed media, 194 × 77 cm, 2023
Alive / Жыве
A spectral white figure, whose upper contours exactly replicate the map of Belarus, conceals a deep, bleeding wound on its right side beneath a flawless drapery. Referencing the anti-colonial slogan "Long Live Belarus!" (Zhyve Belarus), the nation is presented in my work as a phantom—an entity simultaneously present and absent, trapped outside linear time under the weight of dictatorship. Despite the pulsating pain of a mutilated society, this continuously recurring image becomes for me a sublime testament to the hope for survival, emphasizing that the wound inflicted upon "Belarus" is not in the heart, which is located on the left.
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oil on canvas, tar, 102 × 81 cm, 2022
Maiming
Thick, suffocating layers of oil and tar physically distort the figure within the painting, conveying the horrific reality of somatic trauma. The mutilated body is stripped of individual features, transforming into a physical archive of collective pain. A glossy hematoma serves as a viscous metaphor for repressive biopolitics—a substance that violently restricts, consumes, and deforms human flesh, subjugating it entirely to a brutal authoritarian framework.
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mixed media, 31.5 × 27.5 cm, 2023
Veins of Stone
The idiom "blood runs cold" has a literal biological basis: medical research indicates that in moments of extreme stress or primal fear, blood coagulation sharply increases. This is an ancient evolutionary mechanism to protect the body from blood loss in the event of potential injury. I use this hidden physiological fact as a piercing metaphor for a society frozen in terror. The work materializes an invisible internal process, demonstrating how a permanent state of threat literally alters the biochemistry of the human organism, turning blood into heavy stone.
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plexiglass mold, oil, resin coating, 85 × 65 cm, 2023
Sores
The smooth, refined surface, visually mimicking perfect, fragile porcelain, is violently interrupted by gaping sores. These wounds are left not by the relentless passage of time, but by blunt, external physical pressure. I intentionally destroy the illusion of a decorative ornament: the "flawless" form is no longer capable of concealing the traces of endured violence. For me, these defects are imprints of a traumatic experience breaking through the facade of well-being. The artwork speaks to the fragility of a psyche that remembers every blow, and to the illusory aesthetic of "stability" that disintegrates under repressive conditions.
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plaster bandage, oil, 94 × 72 cm, 2023; reworked 2025
PAINting
This work required more than fifty rolls of plaster bandages, repeatedly wrapped and sealed with varnish to create its layered surface. The bandage here symbolizes both endurance and the ability to withstand pain while striving for healing. I also draw attention to the wordplay PAIN-ting (painting), underscoring the central role of pain in the work.
A year ago, I took a vow of abstinence from alcohol and jewelry — an ascetic gesture made for a wish that has not yet come true. It was a renunciation of the external in order to focus on the internal. For a year I neither drank nor adorned myself. This painting remained the only one without a home after the Lazaret exhibition, and I decided to gift it my jewelry — even my grandmother’s earrings — so that it might become more beautiful, loved, and accepted. Among these ornaments are pieces of Czechoslovak costume jewelry, some more than sixty years old. Produced in the 1950s–1970s, such pieces are increasingly regarded as collectible, as production on this scale and of this quality no longer exists.
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A year ago, I took a vow of abstinence from alcohol and jewelry — an ascetic gesture made for a wish that has not yet come true. It was a renunciation of the external in order to focus on the internal. For a year I neither drank nor adorned myself. This painting remained the only one without a home after the Lazaret exhibition, and I decided to gift it my jewelry — even my grandmother’s earrings — so that it might become more beautiful, loved, and accepted. Among these ornaments are pieces of Czechoslovak costume jewelry, some more than sixty years old. Produced in the 1950s–1970s, such pieces are increasingly regarded as collectible, as production on this scale and of this quality no longer exists.
bandage on oil, 140 × 140 cm, 2022
Sign of pain
To create this monumental canvas, I required over one hundred packages of medical bandages, which I unrolled, intertwined, and heavily saturated with varnish across all layers. The bandage acts here as a physical archive of our collective attempt at healing. The national symbol, struggling to break through the dense texture of the bandages, becomes in my work a manifesto of the resilience of the Belarusian people. This canvas is not merely a record of shared pain and endured repression, but my uncompromising beacon of unyielding determination, proving that the voice of resistance cannot be permanently silenced.
canvas, oil on bandage, 85 × 75 cm, 2022
Victim
No matter how tightly a medical bandage is applied, blood inevitably seeps through. The painting is wrapped entirely in bandages, serving as my personal metaphor for the experience of forced migration and an agonizing wound. This non-linear process is embedded in the very history of the canvas's creation: having started this work in Belarus during a period of repression, I was forced to flee to Kyiv, where I was finishing it when the war began. During an emergency evacuation, I left the painting in Kyiv, and it was later transported to me in Poland. This artwork has literally absorbed the physical geography of displacement.
plexiglass mold, tar, oil, 85 × 65 cm, 2022
Under the sky of Belarus
Executed in the national white-red-white colors currently banned in Belarus, the work captures the fading vision of a dying creature. The stork—a sacred symbol of Belarus—stares into the void with bloodied eyes, yet there is no submissive resignation in its gaze. The inflicted wounds (symbolized by an arrow) paradoxically render it even more conscious and "Alive."
"I see in his gaze a piercing look directed at humanity a humanity that has failed to learn from the Holocaust. I see in him reproach and sorrow, acceptance and departure, alienation and denial." — Written from prison by someone who saw this work at an exhibition.
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"I see in his gaze a piercing look directed at humanity a humanity that has failed to learn from the Holocaust. I see in him reproach and sorrow, acceptance and departure, alienation and denial." — Written from prison by someone who saw this work at an exhibition.
acrylic on canvas, pastel, 120 × 100 cm, 2021
Belarusian / Беларусачка
In this self-portrait, I explore the deconstruction of a national myth through a radical chromatic shift. Historically, traditional Belarusian ornamentation was executed exclusively in red, symbolizing life, blood, and the sun itself. In this work, I translate this ancient visual code into a funereal black pattern, creating the suffocating effect of a mourning veil. This visual inversion captures the historical moment when cultural heritage and national identity are consumed by a massive social tragedy, forcing the viewer to directly confront the aesthetics of collective grief.
сanvas, glass, tar, oil. 75 × 40 cm, 2021
Bullet — A Fool
This painting is a materialized metaphor for blind and senseless violence. A gaping bullet hole forms the physical structure of the canvas, while resin and glass simulate blood. I create the effect of "congealed blood"—a substance that does not flow, but instantaneously crystallizes at the moment of a fatal impact, permanently frozen in a wet gloss. Referencing the famous military proverb ("the bullet is a fool"), I underscore the unthinking, amoral mechanics of destruction: a blind projectile leaves behind an incurable trace that is optically and ethically impossible to ignore.
93X64 cm. Oil on canvas. 2022
Mark
"Scars are stronger than the skin itself; they are better able to withstand a blow." This famous quotation from Clarissa Pinkola Estés serves as the conceptual foundation for my work. Radically rejecting victimhood, I investigate trauma not as a zone of irreparable weakness, but as a site for the formation of unprecedented defense. Scarring is a biological reaction wherein tissue loses elasticity but gains unbreakable density. My painting visualizes this process: endured pain modifies the structure of the personality, transforming vulnerability into durable armor capable of withstanding the pressure of the surrounding world.
gypsum, canvas, epoxy resin, 80х50 cm, 2020
Rape
This artwork is my painful and historically necessary memorial. It is dedicated to Belarusians who were subjected to sexualized violence by state security forces during the suppression of peaceful protests. The use of cold, hardening materials—medical gypsum and epoxy resin—conveys the numbness and paralysis that accompany the total subjugation of human will and corporeal autonomy. By bringing the taboo subject of systemic state violence into the public gallery space, I seek to strip the aggressors of their primary weapon: the forced silence of their victims.
Home-woven fabric, embroidery, acrylic paint, 2019
The Heritage / Spadchina
In the pursuit of rampant consumption, modern society often discards its heritage—destroying robust ancestral homes and replacing durable inherited furniture with cheap, mass-produced goods. This consumerist paradigm imposes a value system where the continuous acquisition of disposable commodities is normalized, even when such purchases lack vital necessity. Every individual bears a profound responsibility for their daily choices, as these micro-decisions collectively shape the values of an entire generation and directly impact the preservation of national heritage. The project's title, written in Latin letters (Spadchina), utilizes a visual wordplay to highlight the word "China" within it, critically juxtaposing local cultural inheritance with the global epicenter of mass production.
Plexiglass, photo: digital printing, 85 × 65 cm, 2019
Plastictheism
In this work, the pervasive global reliance on synthetic materials is critically examined through the medium of plexiglass and digital printing. Plastictheism visualizes the ecological consequences of single-use plastics and addresses the ongoing crisis generated by inadequate recycling infrastructures. By elevating disposable consumer goods to the status of an artistic subject, I seek to prompt a reevaluation of modern consumption habits. The piece functions as a critique of ecological negligence, challenging the viewer to confront the systemic normalization of disposable items—such as utensils, bags, and bottles—in everyday life.
In my practice, I treat the canvas as a body rather than a flat surface. Using plaster bandages, resin, and oil, I build a skin that carries traces of injury, care, and repair. The surface becomes a place where vulnerability is made tangible and where painting begins to behave like an object that can wound, support, or fail.
Since being forced into exile from Belarus in 2022, I have used this material language to address political violence, uprooting, and the unstable process of healing. My sculptural paintings and installations do not narrate trauma from a distance; they give it physical form. In Ziamliačka, this logic extends beyond the canvas: soil, scent, glass, textile, and sound assemble into the fragile body of a homeland. Across painting, object, and installation, I use the scar as both wound and record, turning personal vulnerability into a carrier of collective memory.
Represented by Uitstalling Art Gallery
Solo exhibitions
2026 – ABSENCE, Kube Gallery, Genk, Belgium (opens 21 May)
2026 – ZIAMLIAČKA, Kunsthaus Graz, Graz, Austria
2025 – FRAGILE, MAD Gallery, Poznań, Poland
2023 – LAZARET, Beseder Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic
2023 – LAZARET, Museum of Free Belarus, Warsaw, Poland
2021 – ACHING, A&V Art Gallery, Minsk, Belarus
2020 – UNTITLED, Art-Belarus Gallery, Minsk, Belarus
Group exhibitions
2025 – The Arrows of Resilience: Reimagining Saint Sebastian, MAD Art Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2023 – Charity Auction for the Humanosh Foundation, Exhibition of works by Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Polish artists, Piękna Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2023 – Where am I. Exhibition of contemporary Belarusian art, Montenegro European Art Community Gallery, Budva, Montenegro
2023 – Who Owns the Land: Art as agent of expression conflict, statelessness, diaspora, coloniality, THE PINNA Gallery, exhibition online, London, England
2021 – The Autumn Salon, National gallery Palace of Arts, Minsk, Belarus
2020 – Art-Minsk the international art festival, National gallery Palace of Arts, Minsk, Belarus
2019 – The Autumn Salon, National gallery Palace of Arts, Minsk, Belarus
2019 – Triennial of Young Artists, National gallery Palace of Arts, Minsk, Belarus
Publications & Mentions
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