Katya Levental is a fourth-generation artist in a family dynasty of famous Russian artists. Her paintings of vintage costumes and fabrics act as a self-portrait of the artist and a powerful reminder of a past life lived.
"...Even after we have discarded possessions, thrown them away, placed them away, they tell a story of something that happened to us, something we have been through, something we subliminally reach for in life... Driven by the need to create a connection between myself, the past, and present I attempt memorialise chosen articles in order to leave a source from which the viewer can draw a personal association".
(Katya Levental 2017)
Katya focuses on representing her own multicultural assimilation while honouring and keeping to her traditional artistic heritage, playing with contemporary and classical subject matter. "The time it takes to obtain, study, and paint these artifacts is a crucial experience to my creative process". She is most connected with art when it displays the boundaries of established formalistic principles and is also imbued with cultural subject matter.