Maria Safronova

Born in 1979 in the city of Rzhev, Tver region. In 2003 she graduated from the Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute, in 2011 — the Institute of Contemporary Art and the «Free Workshops». Laureate of the Sergey Kuryokhin Contemporary Art Award 2015 in «The best work of visual art» nomination.The works of M.S.are in the collections of the MMOMA (Moscow), museum Erarta (St. Petersburg), the S.Kuryokhin Modern Art Center (St. Petersburg). Finalist of the Kandinsky Prize in the nomination “Young artist. Project of the Year” in 2012. Nominee of the Kandinsky Prize in the nomination “Young artist. Project of the Year” in 2014.

Total private
The project demonstrates the process of the socialization of an individual, their self-identification and adaptation to the conditions of modern society using a diverse thematic landscape: the typical school, psychiatric hospital or the average office.The first part shows that every individual enclosed in the narrow confines of their social role, in this case, the walls of the insane asylum, exists in a closed community, where everything operates according to established rules. In the second part of the study one can see how social institutes (nurseries, kindergartens, schools) prepare children to be fit for the matrix of adult life – through games and routine to future obligations and obedience to the law. The characters of the third part are adapted to the system of “white collars”, elements of a bulky structure whose life is subordinated to a strict working schedule and is full of the same events and actions imitating employees’ activity. Each series of paintings is accompanied by a model of an entity that is in the artist’s focus. These are handmade, confined spaces – empty and impersonal. The psychiatric hospital is a labyrinth of tiled floors and walls covered by an oil painting. The endless succession of standardized objects of a kindergarten in the file cabinet with models is shocking and hypnotizing. The Office looks like a strict grid. In reality, it is an aquarium, a free water space in which a silent goldfish is slowly moving. This silence and emptiness permeates every part of the triptych full of clear air.