Empty Spaces Katerina Belkina’s work is one large statement of the seeking human being. She shows herself as a distant character in different roles, thus putting her own individuality into perspective, while at the same time addressing the viewer. As a modern, makeable creature, the woman is turned into a new heroine in the story which is both recognizable and mysterious. The seriousness with which she presents her portrayed self to the viewer both alarms and fascinates. Her crystal-clear representations, which are at the same time of a strong pictorial character, are mainly aimed face-forward. This portrayal method strips the works of an anecdotal overtone and gives them the conceptual and abstract connotation of Russian icons. The idea put into a human form. Katerina Belkina is an artist who views man as a creature who looks for the boundaries of the connection with the universe by using soul and reason. As the confrontation with the impossibility thereof is great, he creates his own universe. This takes on the form of a metropolis. However, this urbanized world is artifcial and purely materialistic and, as a tiny dot in this constructed whole, man feels even more lonely and abandoned. In this sense, Belkina’s characters are constructed anew. In her vision, the metropolis has created a new type of human, in which only a hint of consciousness of the connection with the true universe is present.
