All Our Yesterdays

By Lydia Figes

Russian artist Katya Granova’s solo show All Our Yesterdays immerses the viewer in vivid colour and rhythmic sweeps of luminous oil paint in the high ceilinged studios of Handbag Factory in Vauxhall. Curated by Roisin McQueirns, the exhibition spans painting, works on paper, and photo-printed transparent drapes as well as a unique live performance, all of which offer a window into the artist’s psyche and the complexity of personal and collective histories. 'New yesterdays appear every day' says Granova. 'Old yesterdays are stored in the dusty depot of unstable human memory, guarded by forces that can alter them'.

Digging into the psyche remains at the heart of her practice. 'I approach painting through constant introspection,' she explains. 'While painting I’m highly aware of what I’m doing, always questioning my motivations and whether I’m being fully honest and authentic throughout the process.' Whether shaped by her past life experiences, emotions, or immediate responses to the work, Granova’s paintings reflect and capture a psychological ritual of feeling and thought (and subsequently, an analysis of both the former and latter). Typically working from photographs, each painting is also a bodily response to a found image. Each brushstroke is honoured and preserved, even if it inadvertently disrupts the harmony of the composition. 'If a mark happens, it happens. I never paint over it – I allow it to remain in the work,' Granova adds. 'I see this approach as allowing for a kind of democracy of voices.' 

Granova’s works reflect a world in a state of flux and uncertainty. 'I like the idea that there’s nowhere to rest visually – blank space gives an illusion of control and comfort. I want the viewer to be challenged and to observe the entire surface', she admits. This style conveys a sense of restlessness and precarity, recalling the historical upheaval she bore witness to with the collapse of the USSR in 1991. 

Granova retrieves history by working from old photographs, which she projects onto  canvas, applying watercolour to transpose an image and create an initial outline before adding many layers of thick or thinned down colour to the surface. 'I have the desire to insert myself into the photograph.' But she’s also ruminating on the visuals she recalls seeing constantly as a child, in particular the medical and surgical images found in her home growing up. 'My use of colour emulates that imagery. Sometimes I think about my process of painting as a dissection of colour.' 

In All Our Yesterdays, a section of the room is sectioned off by curtains, as in an operating theatre. 'The idea to place drapes in the middle of the space allows the viewer to connect to some works in a more intimate manner, as well as alluding to the presence of photography in a more subtle way.' But curtains also evoke the stage. 'I’ve always loved contemporary dance and ballet, but I later discovered that performance could be connected to painting directly. Painting derives from a kind of bodily performance, the gestural movement of the hand across the canvas.'

Colour is a catalyst for self expression in Granova’s painting: 'I try not to work with too many colours at the same time, allowing a few colours to enter into a dialogue with another.' Indeed, her daring use of colour is unwavering – she doesn’t hold back and she embraces incongruences. Somehow, colours that might clash and collide with one another uncomfortably, spark energy and harmonise on the surfaces of her canvases. 'I paint while asking: what does this work want?' In this sense, the artist surrenders to colour, which is applied intuitively and is contingent upon the journey of the painting.

All Our Yesterdays points to the continuity of history in the present day and the preservation of personal memory on canvas.