Gavrilova Mila

BIO

Born in Orel in 1987;

2002-2007 – the Orel Art College;

2013 graduated from the Moscow Surikov State Academic Institute of Fine Arts, Easel Painting Studio, Honors Diploma and Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Arts;

Since 2013 and 2014 I am a member of the Moscow Union of Artists and the Artists Union of Russia;

A participant of over one hundred of Moscow, All-Russia and International exhibitions and art projects, including those in Argentina, Italy, France, Slovakia, and India. The artworks are in private galleries and museum collections (the Vyatka Art Museum named after V.M. and A.M. Vasnetsovs, the Zavolzhsky City Art and Local History Museum) in Russia and abroad.

2023-2024 – training on the course of contemporary art at MMOMA Free Workshops School

Gavrilova Mila

The Artist’s Statement

Working with urban spaces, I explore the dialogue between humans and the city, paying particular attention to the issues of overconsumption. The main characters of my works are the city itself and the objects that populate it.

Through the symbols and signs present in my works from series to series, I investigate the interconnection between humans and the city. Emphasizing the idea of overconsumption, I push elements of urban environments to the point of absurdity. I develop the theme of excessive consumption by examining the phenomenon of disposability in symbolic objects derived from everyday routines.

I am also interested in exploring the human experience in urban spaces during the transition from past to future, existing in a frozen state of the present. A person in the city is constantly in motion, and for them, time moves nonlinearly—they often fall out of the moment of "now." In my canvases, I express this idea through symbolic elements, in a moment of frozen movement, through dynamic rhythms in the composition.

In addition to painting and graphics, I create multilayered objects from used disposable paper cups and waste paper, as well as handmade paper cast from the same waste materials. In all my objects, I strive to emphasize the secondary nature of the materials used as an antithesis to disposability.

What is a modern city? How are the processes happening in the present reflected in it, and how can we emotionally feel them? How does the city "speak" to us? These and other questions I passionately explore in my art.