Kristina Okan is an award-nominated international visual artist, born in Russia in 1991. She lives and works in Berlin and Moscow.
Okan received her Master of Arts Degree from Stroganov`s Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts in Moscow. She has exhibited her works in solo and group exhibitions across Europe and Asia, including the UK, Italy, Greece, Germany, China.
She was nominated for a prestigious international ceramic art award, “Blanc de Chine,” in 2019 and awarded an honorable mention from Cluj Ceramic Biennale.
Her works can be found in the collections of Quanzhou Porcelain Road Art Development Center (Beijing) and private collections.
Artist statement
In my works, I examine the beauty and fragility of the natural world. My sculptural language is rooted in classical European traditions of porcelain art, engaging with themes of beauty, biomorphism, and notions of the micro and macrocosm. One of my main ideas is to capture the transformation of ephemeral brittle beauty into petrified porcelain forms that will stay like little eternal monuments of delight and celebration of life.
In my artworks, I often challenge the viewer to find their own meaning, wake up feelings and emotions, associations and fantasies, which are more covert, carrying some secrets and mysteries. I am creating a private dialogue between an object and the viewer.
Inspired by Renaissance traditional still lives with their visual relish of objects, I create sensual biomorphic shapes formed from repetitive and fractal modules.
My sculptures are made mainly of porcelain because of their unexampled and unique qualities as a clay body: its subtlety and fragility. Smooth surface quality refers to something mysterious which intrigues me. This special material is able to give you a sense of texture due to its pure whiteness, astonishing translucence, and ability to take on fine details.
Although my works focus on nature and the body, they are never figurative and poise geometric abstract matter.
Art fairs
2022 Affordable Art Fair Brussels (represented by Haze Gallery), BE
Discovery Art Fair (represented by Haze Gallery), Cologne, DE
2021 Art The Hague fair (represented by Moon Gallery), The Hague, NL
Solo Exhibitions
2021 Kristina Okan – Artist` Weekend, Haze Gallery, Berlin, DE
2020 My Secret Garden, Haze Gallery, Berlin, DE
2019 Metamorphosis, 7 Mares, Berlin, DE
2018 Some Things (don`t) Last Forever, Vitrine01, Berlin, DE
2017 Allusions. Formations, KM 0 Gallery, Warsaw, PL
Selected Group Exhibitions
2022 Internation Space Station mission, Moon Gallery, Wallops Pad 0A, Virginia, USA
2021 Microgravity show, Moon Gallery, Fokker Terminal, The Hague, NL (catalogue)
The Bridge, Moon Gallery, PLNT Leiden, Leiden, NL
Koschatzky Art Award' 21 nominees exhibition, Schönbrunn Palace, Wien, AUT (catalogue)
2020 Hot mess, Prince Charles, Berlin, DE
From Russians with Love, The Ballery, Berlin, DE
2019 International Cluj Ceramic Biennale, Cluj-Napoca, RO (catalogue)
ICAA “Blanc de Chine”, nominees exhibition, 798 Art Zone, Beijing, CHN
Pop-up Group Art Exhibition, The Ballery, Berlin, DE
35x35 Art Project, CFAM, Copelouzos Family Art Museum, Athens, GR (catalogue)
Venice Lands International Art Prize, nominees exhibition, Villa Memo Giordani Valeri, Quinto di Treviso, IT (catalogue)
Fantastic and Strange, Fringe Arts Bath Festival, Bath, UK
2018 Petersburg and Friends August Edition, Petersburg Art Space, Berlin, DE 2017 One Night Stands, Exgirlfriend Gallery, Berlin, DE
Leftovers, Prenzlauer Berg/Kunst Kollektiv, Berlin, DE
On the edge of Spain, Russian Center of Science and Culture, Warsaw, PL
2015 V/MESTE, Dom na Brestskoj, Moscow, RU
2014 White&White, IV Moscow Biennale of Young Art, A3 Gallery, Moscow, RU (catalogue)
Impossible object, Dom na Brestskoj, XIII International Festival of Architecture, Moscow, RU
