Arina Antonova: Selected works, 2021-2024
The birth of Venus. Deconstruction, 2024
Since my early exposure to art history in my teens, Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” has stuck with me. This painting shows the goddess of love and beauty, a nude woman on a massive shell, born from sea spray and carried by the wind. Inspired by classical Greek statues, Botticelli portrays Venus with modesty, using her long hair to cover up. In today’s world obsessed with beauty, youth, and the “perfect” body, this young blonde Venus still represents an ideal woman from a male-centric perspective. My installation challenges this narrative by deconstructing Botticelli’s masterpiece and dissecting its gender, lust, and sexual symbols. Inspired by my cultural background and female socialization, I reimagine Venus in a contemporary context. The resulting sculptures represent different actors within the narrative.
In “Venus Oyster” I deliberately transform Venus’s wavy locks from blonde to grey, questioning conventional notions of beauty. “Venus Feet” stands for the most common fetish for body parts today. “Zephyr Amphora” with long blue hair symbolizing the wind, takes on a provocative form, shaped like a plug, while “Chloris Roses” in gold, red, and blue impart distinct meanings to the rose. Introducing an interactive piece, “Holy Nimbus” I invite viewers to step into the goddess’s feet by trying it on. This ergonomically shaped sculpture fits every head, whether male or female.
Matanza, 2023
Matanza comes from my memories, traumatic flashbacks, and a photographic family archive of the pig slaughter I experienced as a child at my grandma’s house. It’s a mess of contradictions—the warmth of family gatherings against the raw violence of the slaughter, making these memories both bitter and sweet. I remember watching from a distance how my grandmother, who had known real hunger, took charge with the precision of someone who understood scarcity. The pig’s scream, the thick smell of burnt skin, the way fresh meat became sustenance. I never took part. That was my choice. And yet, years later, I return to it through my work.
Making sausages out of clay became an act of emotional repair. As a child, the Matanza was too intense for me—too ambivalent, both a feast and an act of violence. For my family, it wasn’t just tradition; it was survival. During Soviet winters, when supermarket shelves were bare, this ritual meant food security. Now, working with clay, I transform that trauma into agency and creation. What I couldn’t face then, I shape in my own hands.
The installation consists of four ceramic plates, each holding a different type of Mallorcan sausage. I have lived in Mallorca for ten years, where Matanza is still practiced. The plates rest on a table covered with an ikat tablecloth, a textile deeply rooted in local tradition. The work bridges personal memory with place, linking past and present, ritual and consumption.
Call To Action, 2022-2023
Call for Action is a series of sculptural pieces made to be activated through physical interaction and instinctive movement. With this project, I explore the tension between constraint and freedom, strength and vulnerability. Rules, traditions, and borders shape our reality — yet these same structures can provoke spontaneous, unruly responses.
The project consists of a set of colorful body sculptures that call for performative action: to be worn and engaged through semi-restrained gestures, evoking a state of flux, friction, and transformation. Each position on the body generates new movement possibilities, inviting a continuous negotiation between form and motion.
These pieces are inspired by the colorful plastic bracelets I used to find in my mother’s jewelry box — relics of the 90s, that for me, evoke the paradoxical atmosphere of the late Soviet era: a moment when long-held social constraints collided with the emergence of new, seductive freedoms. The sculptures may not fit everyone or feel comfortable — and that’s intentional. They offer the wearer a physical and emotional encounter with boundaries, resistance, and the longing to move beyond them.
Call for Action has been shown in collaboration with contemporary dancers through a series of live performances. These performative activations and movement research have become an integral part of the project — allowing the sculptures to exist in motion, in dialogue with the body.
No Name, 2021
Being an artist has turned me into a researcher. While navigating the world of ceramics, I’ve stumbled upon foundational paradigms that are as political as they are material—rooted in both the basics of pottery-making and the constructions of female identity.
The shape of my vessels is inspired by the pithos—an ancient container used for storing grains, oil, or wine. These were not decorative objects but functional volumes for preserving sustenance. They were made to be touched, lifted, filled, and emptied. This utilitarian origin matters. It ties the vessel directly to the body: to nourishment, care, and labor, often carried out by women invisibly.
Archeologists and historians have long attributed pottery and clay work to women across civilizations—yet when we trace the written history of ceramic art, we encounter a paradox. Men overwhelmingly author the documented, signed, and museum-collected ceramics. Female-produced ceramics are relegated to anonymity. Labeled as “No Name.” Considered too domestic, too plain, too unimportant to be named.
My vessels reject that narrative. Their shapes are full-bodied—deliberately heavy, tactile, sensuous. I draw inspiration from makeup aesthetics: skin tones, shimmer, foundation, blush, nail polish. It’s my gendered response to the idea of a “feminine touch”— ironic, layered, and rooted in contradiction.
Each piece is a tribute to the unnamed women behind generations of ceramic labor. Each is also a personal response to what I, as a woman, encounter daily: rituals of self-presentation, emotional management, and the constant calibration of how much space to take up.
Captions
- The Birth of Venus. Deconstruction. Installation view, 2024
Venus Feet, 2024, stoneware, gold luster; 30 x 10 x 7 cm
Venus Oyster, 2024, stoneware, mother of pearl luster, synthetic hair; 30 x 25 x 10 cm
Zephyr Amphora, 2024, porcelain, synthetic hair, metallic chain; 33 x 15 x 15 cm / with hair 80 cm, chain 1,5 m
Holy Nimbus, 2024, mother of pearl luster, synthetic hair, metallic chain; 4 x 15 x 20 cm / with hair 40 cm, chain 1,5 m
The Birth Shell, 2024, stoneware, mother of pearl luster, gold luster; 20 x 25 x 8 cm
Chloris Roses, 2024, stoneware, pigments, gold luster; each 15 x 15 x 10 cm - Matanza installation view, 2023, Mallorquin ikat pattern fabric, stoneware sculptures; 70 x 75 x 200 cm
Sobrasada Plate, 2023, stoneware, pigments; 36 x 36 x 20 cm
Butifarra Plate, 2023, stoneware, pigments; 36 x 36 x 15 cm
Ribs Plate, 2023, stoneware, pigments; 36 x 36 x 9 cm
Camayot Plate, 2023, stoneware, pigments; 35x 36 x 20 cm - Heavy Blue Loop, 2022, stoneware, pigments; 45 x 40 x 10 cm
Mint Loop, 2022, stoneware, pigments; 64 x 40 x 10 cm
Violet Loop, 2022, stoneware, pigments; 45 x 40 x 13 cm
Heavy Mint Hoop, 2022, stoneware, pigments; 22 x 18 x 9 cm
Soft Pink Loop, 2022, stoneware, pigments; 43 x 25 x 15 cm
Blue Loop, 2022, stoneware, pigments; 45 x 40 x 21 cm
Movement Research by Cate Barceló with Heavy Pink Hoop, 2023, photo credits Ana Adriano
Movement Research by Cate Barceló with Mint Loop, 2023, photo credits Ana Adriano
Movement Research by Aina Genovés with Blue Loop, 2023, photo credits Ana Adriano
Movement Research by Aina Genovés with Soft Pink Loop, 2023, photo credits Ana Adriano
Movement Research by Aina Genovés with Soft Pink Loop, 2023, photo credits Ana Adriano
Movement Research by Cate Barceló with Heavy Pink Hoop, 2023, photo credits Ana Adriano - No Name vessels, 2021, stoneware, pigments, wild clay; each 30 x 30 x 50 cm
No Name Red, 2021, stoneware, pigments, wild clay; 30 x 30 x 50 cm
No Name Blue, 2021, stoneware, pigments, wild clay; 30 x 30 x 50 cm
No Name Pink, 2021, stoneware, pigments; 30 x 30 x 50 cm
No Name Violet, 2021, stoneware, pigments; 30 x 30 x 50 cm
