ART: Valerie Savchits

'I have chosen in my recent work to explore and reveal how aesthetics can be made to move in the opposite direction from the norms and eventually become a ‘reversed aesthetics’ or, in other words, how to unsee that fake beauty'

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ABOUT THE ARTIST

Valerie Savchits was born to a Russian-speaking family near the Baltic Sea in Latvia in 1993. She graduated from the University of Salford in 2016 with a degree in Visual Arts. 

​Valerie uses a wide array of materials and techniques in her artwork including oil paint, spray paint and neon installations. Savchits exhibits nationally and internationally working from her studio in Hotel Elephant Studios & Gallery in Southwark, London. Her work has appeared in Tate Modern, Saatchi Gallery, Affordable Art Fair UK, The Guardian, BBC Live and Uniqlo on Oxford St. 

In March 2017 Valerie teamed up with a premium British accessories brand Paul's Boutique to work on a bag design for PB's spring marketing campaign. She is also one of the winners of Hotel Elephant & Southwark Council's Art & Culture Grant Scheme.

VALERIE SAVCHITS SAYS

'My concern is that turning away from established norms should not be ignored anymore as the whole process reflects the truth of a large portion of the population and gives a chance to leave prejudices of the past behind us.' 

CKM SAYS

CKM loves the way in which Savchits' work subverts familiar artistic and cultural symbols (addressing race politics in Manet's Olympia, and ethnic stereotypes by using Russian dolls), as well as gendered colour palettes (by uglying the colour pink) to create art which challenges received notions of aesthetics, raising questions of identity in post-soviet societies, the art world and elsewhere.

Find out more about Valerie Savchits and enter a competition to win a portrait on her website.