Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art presents the Memory Code, an exhibition by Tatiana Necheukhina in which Bible stories blend in with the quotidian and a kind of daily magic sustains the fragile way of things
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An artistic inquiry into the imperceptible codes that pass on the experience of past generations
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Daily magic, Old Testament stories, and the importance of saying ‘thank you’ to the AI
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Lyrical portraits of women from different epochs sharing the common realm of memory
The concept of a memory code encapsulates a certain personal system that helps individuals retain and give structure to what is most valuable to them in order to pass it on. This kind of continuity is what perpetuates the shared cultural code and provides a key to its cipher.
Philosophers and social commentators of the 20th century wrote a lot about memory, of which, we now know, there are different kinds, including collective, cultural, and even artificially constructed varieties. The smells reminiscent of childhood, bodily scars and daily habits form a person’s body memory. This set of survival skills usually stays with us throughout our life, reminding us to steer clear of beds of nettles and avoid touching incandescent objects. The existence of this kind of memory compellingly proves that the past lives on in the present.
Tatiana Necheukhina’s paintings offer yet another dimension of memory – the lyrical one. Her characters are women of all ages or, more often, of no specific age at all. Strangely enough, the pensive peasants from the 1850s’ photographs and modern urbanites of the same age group have a lot in common. In most cases they practice the same kind of daily magic that the artist is particularly sensitive to, having had the chance to witness the domestic lives of the Russian Old Believers and the sacraments they pass down through generations and continue to strictly observe. In the present-day urban setting, something of sorts lives on in the common superstitions whose actual meanings have been erased by time. Such quotidian magic exists to ensure that life goes on in a harmonious, orderly rhythm.
Tatiana Necheukhina wittily documents the ways in which centuries-old practices are being altered by new technologies – the latter, in turn, gradually becoming more human and approachable. Revisiting the realm of myth and ritual, she seems to decode it into visions of the Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet provincial life. Here, universal appeal is more important than either ethnographic exoticism or recognisable tokens of time, while our memory code seems to hint that these paintings are as multi-layered as Chekhov’s novellas.
Artist, teacher, curator, and one of the most prominent figures in Perm’s contemporary art scene, Tatiana Necheukhina was born in Kurgan in 1962 and studied consecutively at the Aleksey Venetsianov Tver Art College and the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Perm.
Tatiana is a Board Member of the Perm Chapter of the Artists’ Union of Russia, Chairperson of the Department of Painting at the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, recipient of the Ivan Borisov Municipal Art Prize (2001) and the Perm Krai Art and Culture Award (2013, 2020).
Painting – whether on canvas, wood or various vintage items – is Tatiana Necheukhina’s preferred medium, although the artist also creates textile collages and art objects. Her choice of materials, techniques, and methods is always determined by the subject. Tatiana’s works were acquired by the Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art, Perm State Art Gallery, Kurgan Oblast Art Museum, Ivan Konovalov Berezniki Art and History Museum, Ivan Morozov Krasnokamsk Art Gallery, E.ON corporate art collection (Germany), as well as by private collectors in Russia and internationally.
