Mariia Bokovnia (b. 1991, St. Petersburg, Russia) is a multimedia visual artist who lives and works in Berlin. She grew up in the Far East of Russia in the town of Blagoveschensk on the border with China. After studying in a studio of the painter V. Serebryakov, she continued her education in traditional drawing and painting in St. Petersburg. After moving to Germany for study in Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle her practice has developed and became much wider, and besides painting she currently works with installation, video, sculpture and photography.
In her work she creates surreal spaces through a combination of scenography and the existent room. She explores images and video as a continuation of a room that serves as a threshold into pseudo-spaces. Restriction of access and visibility are going as a red line through all her art. Her practice involves making rooms within a space, thereby exploring the idea of the threshold between outside and in, real-life and a stage. She uses the motif of a window and a still-life, whether animated, or as a physical objects, to talk about borders (both real and imaginary) between public and private life. She asks questions about what is real, what is constructed, what is idealized. Her atmospheric works are completed by the presence of their viewer, for whom the surroundings create a contemplative space. Her works are filled with poetry created at the intersection of reality and art.
