The artworks of Masha (Maria) Semenskaya are always deeply psychological and personal, the artist explores the theme of self-identification and also the inner states and perceptions related to the prosses of recognition of the personal identity.
The artist reveals the inner state and sensations of interaction with the outer world through a symbolical auto portrait, in the pose, gesture and movement of which her own experience and sensations are refracted. Masha Semenskaya herself as a personage is represented in her works throughout a separate image or composition of figures, which forms a system of one-event elements, sometimes sequential, sometimes simultaneous. The body of the author -protagonist as a material element is a kind of physical conductor between the inner emotional field of the artist and the environment.
The artworks combine images that come from different times and different areas of personal experience - memories and own feelings, values and interpretations that the external environment offers to the artist, the boundaries of self-understanding and existence in the consciousness of others and in the outward space.
Fragments of memories and sensations that come out of the interaction with the outer world are visualized in the art works of Masha Semenskaya through mosaics consisting of consciously cracked fractions of reality. The logic of the majority of paintings by Masha Semenskaya is the logic of dream, their optics is the optics of dreaming, the play of the kaleidoscope patterns and optical illusions.
The artist implements the results of the experiments with different materials and technical solutions in her art practice, combining painting, textile collage and limited editions of her digital works. One of the latest series represent works that combine traditional painting on a canvas with a collage of digital images made on silk.
“Works of Masha Semenskaya are very explicit, almost intimate, but this intimacy is barely audible, because, first of all, it’s muted by the powerful voices of the external world and feels its ineptitude, and if it could be heard in a loud voice, it would be exhibitionistic gesture, so it is quiet, it is not active, it is experiencing a moment of its existence, as these works are meant to face the outside world, intimacy gets cool, it is almost frozen. It sounds more clearly in the space of dreams.” Sacha Balashov
Masha Semenskaya (b. 1974) graduated from the Art School in 1991 and studied at Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design at the Department of Fashion (1991- 1995).
Masha Semenskaya lives and works in Moscow and Crimea.
Solo exhibitions include Cage, Total installation, State Darwin Museum, Moscow, Russia (2020), Masha Semenskaya. SEQUENTIA, 11.12 Gallery, Moscow, Russia (2015), Masha Semenskaya. APOCRYPHA, M. Kroshitsky Art Museum, Sevastopol, Russia (2014), Masha Semenskaya. MOTIVATIONS, MIRONOVA Gallery, Kiev, Ukraine (2013), Obereg, Gallery Metropol, Moscow, Russia (2011).
Works of Masha Semenskaya were on view at the exhibitions Bloom and Gods, CUBE Art-center, Art&Deal Guru Gallery, Moscow, Russia (2020), Digit and Rose, Museum Tour Philippe-le-Bel, Villeneuve-lès Avignon, France (2019), Actual Russia: a Game of Classics, Volgograd Museum of Fine Arts, Volgograd, Russia (2018), Actual Russia: a Game of Classics, All-Russian Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art, Moscow, Russia (2017), Digit and Rose, Museum of Non-conformist Art, St. Petersburg, Russia (2017).