Part of life’s journey is finding out where and with who we belong. This was something artist Katya Kan wrestled with being born in Kazakhstan, of half Russian and half Korean descent, and growing up in the US and the UK. That’s evident in a painting with friends after Glastonbury where it feels overly textured – as if to say if she made it hyper-real, then the ties of friendship will become stronger. It’s made all the more sobering given that she tragically died in 2023, aged just 35.
In a speech given by Gallerist Byron Konzi on Katya’s life and career he said Katya
“was a wonderful, inspiring and delicate energy who lived, breathed and dedicated her life to art and humanity. She was loved and respected by many and admired both as a professional artist and for being the beautiful person that she was. She was not only a very talented artist but created excitement and inspiration through her works by pushing artistic boundaries with originality and challenging all frontiers”.
There is darkness in some of her works whether that be a car where the windows are breaking and a woman licks blood off another or a self-portrait in a bathtub painted during the COVID-19 pandemic when many of us felt listless and drawn to the endless scroll on our phones.
However, there was also great joy in her pieces, most notably a self-portrait of Katya in the toilets at Sketch London wearing her trademark rabbit costume – those who knew her remember her regularly painting while wearing that costume. Bunnies were her favourite animal as she saw them as intelligent, curious and unaggressive – just as she liked to be seen. Katya saw animals in everyone so her grandmother was an owl, her mother a cat and others as a horse or a goose.
Nicky Ginsberg, who founded and runs the NG Art Creative Residency in Provence where Katya was once in residence, recalls that:
“Katya Kan was a phenomenal artist and performer. Often dressed in her rabbit outfit, she thrilled so many of us with her idiosyncracies, her thoughtful and sometimes menacing work, radical ideas, and courageous, humorous, and provocative art practice and performances. She had much to share about her ideology and was never afraid to confront subjects that challenged.
I miss Katya, and she’s a huge loss to the art world. She will always be remembered”.
Family was important too as we see in a series of five paintings showing her and a friend playing video games, inspired by time spent with her younger brother, and both characters in the painting embody avatars from the games. Only works two, three, four and five of the series hang together as the first remains unfinished – another sign of an artist whose life was cut far too short.
I saw these works in an exhibition of around 20 of her works in a gallery near Regent’s Park, where her mother Galia was showing 20 of the roughly 100 works that remain in Katya’s collection. It’s part of a plan to show Katya’s works so they can reach wider audiences post-humously. Performance and body painting were also important parts of Katya’s practice and Galia plans to hold evenings featuring her films, speeches and performances.
Having never met Katya it’s still possible to get a sense of her boundless energy from her work and friends describe her as “the life and soul of the party”, as someone “who showed us there was another dimension to art”.
Katya left a large impact on those who knew her – Amie Conway, art curator and advisor, told me that
“Katya Kan flourished with energy and passion, an intelligent artist concerned with her awareness of modern society’s perceptions. Kan created multidisciplinary works introspectively reflecting her childhood, sexuality and identity… A London-based International artist with an exciting culturally relevant body of work, tragically gone too soon”
Byron Konzi summed up Katya’s life and legacy by stating that
“Katya Kan’s artistic journey is one that was marked by passion, dedication, and a relentless pursuit of self-expression. There is no doubt that through her works, her influence and impact on the art community will only continue to grow. We will miss her energy, her drive and the way she affected people’s lives. Katya will inspire and influence everything I do as we are forced to keep moving forward”.
Katya Kan was an artist and person who lived life to its fullest, and showing her art so that it can reach and inspire others feels like how she would have liked to be remembered, and is a fitting tribute to a talented and vibrant artist who was taken too soon.
You can find more details about Katya Kan and the planned exhibitions of her work on her website and Instagram.
