Wende Museum and Archive of the Cold War, Culver City, California
TRANSFORMATIONS IN ART & DESIGN AT THE WENDE, LA WEEKLY, Article by Shana Nys Dambrot, Posted on May 6, 2021 Comrades Nikifor and Ksenia, 2020 (108” x 81') (Archival Photographic Intervention)
I created Comrades Nikifor and Ksenia in memory of my Ukrainian grandparents. This triptych portrays an imaginary realism of reality and fanciful family lore about their life. I fabricated the compositions by abstracting and repurposing imagery from the Wende collection of Socialist Realism paintings, complementing this with details from some found historical ephemera and others from my collection of family photos, Soviet clothing and lifestyle magazines, and Ukrainian material culture.