About. Artist Masha Neverova

Masha Neverova

(b. 1985, Leningrad USSR, now St.Petersburg Russia) Lives and works in New York, USA. She graduated from St. Petersburg Art College named after Nikolay Roerich and earned her BFA from Russian Pedagogical University in 2011. From 2018-2019 she studied at The School of Contemporary Art ‘Free Workshops’ at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. From 2020 to 2022 she attended a postgraduate art course (classes of A.Zhilyaev, I.Gorshkov, A.Povzner, N.Alekseyev). Neverova participated in solo and group exhibitions in various galleries in Israel, Georgia, Lithuania, and Russia. She is working with ritual, trauma, myth, and memory at the same time she operates visual language from technology. She uses painting, graphics, embroidery, objects, clay, and performance. Her paintings are characterised by using brown, craft paper, and a lot of blacks. 


Artist statement

Over the past 8 years, I have changed many places of residence, first emigrating to Israel, now to America, and in between half a year in Georgia. After moving, I began to think more often about my identity, who I am, what nationality and culture I belong to, where is my home? These thoughts led me to the fact that, having been born in a big city, and having a complex ethnic composition of ancestors, the only thing I am sure of is the plants that I associate with home — my grandmother’s garden and vegetable garden in Belarus, the forests of the Leningrad region, this is literally places where my roots remain. Finding myself in a country with so different climate (Israel), I was a little afraid of the plants around me and began to draw them to understand them a little better. Then I began to add something native and homely to them — this is how appeared a series with combined plants from Russia and Israel in one picture — for example, a Birch tree with the bright red flowers of the tropical Bombax ceiba tree. While drawing, I like to follow the contours of plants with eye and repeat the movement with hand. This is a kind of meditation. I prefer to change objects, I exaggerate and add, prolong and twist. It is crucial for me to see the plant up close, and consider all the details, to get to know it. I am not interested in light, volume, space, the most important things for me are lines, my works are like a collage of images, like a memory. I strive to capture the state and look at the same time in different directions from one point. I use various techniques — oil, charcoal, gouache. Oil paints themselves are associated with home; their smell takes me back to my childhood in my father’s studio where I would go to see how he painted.


Education

  • Art Boot Camp by KAKDELART & Vera Gailis, Israel, 2022 — 2023
  • Sreda Obuchenia (Moscow High School), Russia, 2020 — 2022
  • Free Workshops Art School at MMOMA (Moscow Museum of Modern Art), Russia — Contemporary Artist, 2018 — 2019 
  • Bachelor of Fine Arts The Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, St.Petersburg, 2006 — 2011
  • St. Petersburg Art College named after Nikolay Roerich, St.Petersburg, Russia — Basic Level Designer, 2000 — 2004


Solo exhibition:

2022

  • DK ART, See your hands (St. Petersburg, Russia)

Group exhibitions:

2024

  • Harmony Nomadic Souls (Jerusalem, Israel). Curators: Vera Gailis, Anna Smoliarova
  • Ria Keburia Foundation Residency, Memory Archive (Kachreti, Georgia). Curator: Olga Eliseeva
  • Sisters Room Gallery, Homecoming (Tbilisi, Georgia). Curator: Anastasia Rykunova

2023

  • Sisters Room Gallery, Justice Truth and Peace  (Tbilisi, Georgia). Curator: Olga Eliseeva, Dasha Ilyashenko
  • Negev 8 Gallery Amuta, (Tel Aviv, Israel). Curator: Tomer Ben Horim
  • SVIVA art space, SVIVA STATION (Tel Aviv, Israel). Curator: Kate Finkelstein
  • Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, Muses on the Move, (Haifa, Israel). Curator: Vera Gailis 
  • Golda Hall, Golda Meir 125 years since birth (Kibbutz Ravivim Kibutz) Curator: Ela Cohen
  • KakdelArt residency, The Dreaming House (Tel Aviv, Israel). Curator: Dasha Ilyashenko
  • Fresh Paint Art Fair, DIALOG (Tel Aviv, Israel). Curator: Ela Cohen
  • Archaeological Museum at Kibbutz Ein Dor, Rebirth (Israel). Curator: Adi Nissenbaum

2022 

  • Horace Richter Gallery, Withdraw The War for Ukraine (Tel Aviv, Israel)
  • Damirov Gallery, Traveler’s Mood (Moscow, Russia)
  • APPENDIX Gallery, Transmitted sensations (Moscow, Russia)
  • Hansen House, In Print Art Book Fair (Jerusalem, Israel)

2021

  • Workshop RUSSIAN STATE ART LIBRARY Composition №… (Moscow). Curator: Alexandra Orlova 
  • 22 Gallery “Sweat and aloe” (Moscow). Curator: Oleg Semyonovih, Svetlana Demina
  • 22 Gallery You may not fall asleep (Moscow). Curator: Toma Imass, Irina Guliakina
  • Gallery Na Peschanoy Family Values (Moscow). Curator: Daphne Zaitseva

2020 

  • Gallery ARTBOX Winter exhibition (Saint-Petersburg). Curator: Marina Alvitr
  • The charity center Nochlezhka Alternative reality (Moscow). Curator: Kate Finkelshtein
  • Business center K29 Пространство радости (Vilnius) 

2019

  • Gallery Na Peschanoy Look at yourself (Moscow)
  • Shopping center Ryady OUT (Vladimir)
  • Library 118, Infinite need or the need of the Infinite? (Moscow)
  • CTI Fabrika FREE OFF (Moscow)

2018

  • CCI Fabrika, Koordinaty (Moscow)


Articles:

2024 E. Rubinova, National borders in art exist only if the artist wants them, artandyou.ru (Russian) 

2023 A. Orlova, How Installation Art Crosses the Boarders of the Physical Reality, www.academia.edu/

2022 K. Tarakina, ‘Awaken from your stupor’, syg.ma (Russian) 

2021 S. Souther, PhD, ‘How Surrealism Outlived Everyone’, nordistica.com