Markova Polina Vladislavovna Wall paintings «Dowry», depicting the artist and her great-grandmother, thanks to whose work the author’s interest in his native Chuvash culture manifested itself Technique: mesh embroidery Materials: construction mesh, wool and synthetic threads Dimensions: 4×1.5 m Year of creation: 2024 Price: 50,000 ₽ Works can be exhibited in museum exhibition spaces, galleries and festivals dedicated to the art of small peoples of Russia, and can also be in private collections.
The «Dowry» project, inspired by the Chuvash culture, namely the Chuvash embroideries of my great-grandmother Fedosia, preserved in the family archive.
I created many different options, but in the end I settled on a simple geometric shape — a rectangle, so clearly reminiscent of the Chuvash women’s towel-shaped headdress — surpan and patchwork rugs for chests.
Vasilyeva Fedosia Vasilievna and her embroidered girls
(khēr achasem — in Chuvash)
In the process of doing this, I was filled with the feeling that I was collecting my own dowry, while maintaining the continuity from my great-grandmother.
I also paid special attention to the color scheme, which reflects the Chuvash flavor and at the same time is close in spirit to me as an artist. White is the color of truthfulness, red is the color of life, black is the color of agriculture and death. Pink is an accent color and means pure love, which helped me create these paintings.
The objects are red plastic nets on which girls are embroidered with woolen threads («khēr achasem» — Chuv). Their image was taken from the surpans of the artist’s great-grandmother Fedosia Vasilievna. The two girls symbolize the artist and his great-grandmother, who passes on her knowledge through her art, and her great-granddaughter, who takes it on but interprets it in her own way.
Traditional Chuvash art fascinated me so much that I decided to make chest and back decorations similar to traditional ones, only instead of silver coins I used round and oblong parts made by me from bone china.
The number «seven» is a special number for the Chuvash, according to whose ideas the sky was divided into seven layers, there were seven types of agricultural crops, and the lower world was also divided into seven layers. Therefore, the creation of exactly seven textile objects refers to Chuvash mythology. This project is designed to honor the memory of our ancestors and strengthen the new generation’s faith in tradition and the power of memory. A series of textile objects can be exhibited both together and separately, which also does not contradict the intent of the entire project.
St. Petersburg State Art and Industry Academy named after A.L. Stieglitz Department of Artistic Textiles Master’s degree 2022 — 2024 Leaders: Ermolaeva M.I. Associate Professor of the Department of Artistic Textiles, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences; Dzembak N.M. Dean of the Faculty of MDI SPbGKhPA named after. A.L. Stieglitz, Associate Professor of the Department of Artistic Textiles.