Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art presents an exhibition by Zoya Lendenskaya-Bolshakova fusing traditional crafts with modern concepts and approaches to create new realities and metaphors
-
A material rich in history and cultural memory, recontextualised as contemporary art
-
Felt seen as the very fabric of being
-
Imagery that prompts one to reflect on the frailty of space, fragility of nature, and life on other planets
Modern-day fibre (or textile) art has been formulating a new visual language for many decades, starting back in the 1960s.
Grounded in the cultural tradition and technological breakthroughs of the previous centuries, nowadays textile art has firmly established itself as part of the larger contemporary art realm.
Zoya Lendenskaya-Bolshakova describes her medium as ‘tiny bits of materiality woven into the fabric of life.’ Fibres are front and central in her artworks, be it the rough hand-felted pieces or delicately structured interlacing threads, coming together to form a new reality of a Moonlit Forest.
The wool at the heart of all pieces is perceived as the ultimate source material. Here, textile installations enable the emergence of a new layer of reality.
Is it a utopia or a kind of reverse pastoral?
Warm Moon is a metaphorical title encapsulating multiple themes. It is an installation game posing questions like ‘Is there life on other planets?’ or ‘What is on the far side of the Moon?’ or simply reminding us of the fragility of all being, natural balance, and limits of experience.
Born in Leningrad, Zoya Lendenskaya-Bolshakova graduated from the Decorated Textile Department of the Alexander von Stieglitz St. Petersburg State Academy of Art and Design (former Vera Mukhina Leningrad Higher School of Art and Design). In 1995, jointly with like-minded fellow alumni, she co-founded and subsequently co-managed the St. Petersburg Textile Worker Guild which grew to become a major professional association and an important presence in the city’s cultural scene.
Member of the St. Petersburg Artists’ Union since 1999, Zoya is the recipient of the honorary diploma of the Artists’ Union of Russia (2019), note of acknowledgement from the St. Petersburg Cultural Affairs Committee (2023), and the Silver Medal of the Russian Academy of Arts (2025).
