Karina Akopyan’s Modern Iconoclasm
Karina Akopyan is a modern-day iconoclast. Her artwork pushes the limits as to what is acceptable; it’s brave, forward thinking and controversial without restraint. Yet, within her art is a deep message, one of empowerment and liberation. A message that inspires the youth of today to rebel against the social norms that have been dictated upon them and to create a new set of values.
Since her upbringing in Russia, Karina’s art has continued to develop, and most recently she has worked with such creatives as Lady Gaga for the music video 911. What follows is a conversation with the artist, touching on such topics as the similarities between religious devotion and sadomasochism, all the way to the philosophical cinema of Tarkovsky. GATA is proud to present this unique creative force.
GATA: Can you introduce yourself to us and to the rest of the people that are reading this (where are you from, what are you doing etc)?
KARINA: I am a multidisciplinary Russian-born artist based in London. Originally an illustrator and painter. Currently, I also work in costume design and photography, where I mix decorative-folk art and fetishism.
GATA: When and how did you first encounter Karina’s art and how did it speak to you?
KARINA: It all started with Japanese erotic art. I discovered Toshio Saeki and his work blew my mind. It was so perverse and haunting, the lines of his work were so precise and clean, it was following up with my Aubrey Beardsley obsession. It just clicked for me and then I saw how Russian culture indeed can also have many fetish elements. I did a painting called “Night Train” and I guess, that was when my style came to life.
GATA: In most of your artworks, we can find many figures of empowered women with naked bodies. In a space dominated by male ideals, it is still very hard for us women to know, what is right or wrong in society regarding our own bodies. Is there a message behind your work that calls women to fight against censorship and male values?
KARINA: I am drawn to portraying women much more than men and you can easily notice that in my work.
I come from a very misogynistic society. In Russia, a woman is a daughter first, then a wife and then a mother before she is even a person with any right of choice or individuality. From a young age, I was told which things I was allowed to do or not as a woman and there were different rules for men.
It made me feel extremely angry, but this anger made me the person and the artist that I am now.
Of course, my work is a protest against this mindset and a call for change. In the Soviet Union, the slogan was “There is no sex in the USSR”, but now they try to portray women who enjoy sex on their own terms as mentally unstable.
Some women feel empowered by being naked and some women feel empowered wearing clothes, who cares, what is important is having the choice. I personally find female sexuality extremely beautiful and powerful.
GATA: Is there anything in particular that you are trying to express through your artworks?
KARINA: I would like my art to be open to interpretation, evoking the concept of the unconscious as a dynamic rebalancing of the rational psyche. At its foundation, stripped of any heritage or fetish, it’s about how and why we feel - pain, euphoria, frustration, sexual fantasies, real, imagined memories and secret aspirations.
I want to address certain social and political issues, question national and personal identity and preservation of values and traditions, as either a beautiful necessity or, rather, a deceleration of progress. I would also like to promote the female anti-hero in all her complexity.
GATA: Who is or was your biggest inspiration, when we talk about your art?
KARINA: I think in every stage of my life there has been a big inspiration that pushed me in a certain direction. Master and Margarita the book, captivated my imagination when I was a child, and I realise then that my taste was slightly darker. Lord of the Rings inspired me as a teenager to start creating my own little universe, Aubrey Beardsley made me fall in love with line drawings in college, Toshio Saeki inspired me to go fetish and Tarkovsky has shown me depth.
GATA: You have a unique and dark style; it almost has a religious or mystical touch, relating to different cultures. Are these areas connected? Or what else inspires you?
KARINA: I get inspired not just by art and history, but by a lot of things; by the London Nightlife and the interesting characters I meet, by my own memories, childhood, strange memes I see online…
My art is inspired by a few cultures. I am born in Russia but I have Armenian heritage and spent my pre-adult life in Russia and my subconscious language developed there. Russia is huge and as you move through the country, the culture varies a lot. There is a lot of Eastern Europe elements and as you move towards Asia, influences from China come in. That’s why you might see the echoes from a few cultures in my work. I think we are moving towards a multicultural world; more and more of us are going to have mixed heritage.
GATA: What was your religious upbringing?
KARINA: I was christened and brought up to be Orthodox Christian. My family weren't exactly going to church every week but they did consider themselves faithful. Religion was banned in the Soviet Union and it was strange to see how for example my grandmother and many of her generation were brought up against it.
It had a huge revival when the Soviet Union broke down and it’s having a huge revival now, used as a tool to promote both family values and having as many children as possible.
My relationship with religion has always been a very complicated one. I remember being asked in kindergarten, about five years old if I believed in God, and I said no. It caused me some problems and I was reported back to my family straight away.
After that, I realised that having my own opinion caused me troubles and I thought about not voicing it again.
I also saw very early, the disconnection between what religion portrays versus what I am experiencing, and how it’s used as a tool of power. It seemed that the religious people I met, showed more hate and judgement than kindness and understanding.
In the 90s in Russia, many priests were seen driving expensive cars together with gangsters, getting drunk with prostitutes (no offence to sex workers), filling their pockets with money but preaching a different kind of life for others.
There was one thing that I was fascinated with about religion though. I remember visiting monasteries and churches with school trips (we have visited some amazing places in Russia). The grandness of churches, the peacefulness of it, the feeling of elevation and the art pieces.
I always appreciate the amount of creativity towards the images of Hell a little more than the ones of Heaven. I was sneaking inside the gates of monasteries, to look from far away at the men and women who chose to devote their lives to God, with such curiosity. To give up all pleasure in life for a very humble life…I Immediately felt a connection between sadomasochism and religion. A concept, that strangely also excited me.
GATA: Can you tell us 3 of your favorite movies?
KARINA: The Colour of Pomegranates by Sergei Parajonov, Andrei Rublev and Stalker both by Andrei Tarkovsky.
GATA: What have you been doing during these pandemic times and what’s next for you?
KARINA: I was painting quite blissfully at the beginning of it.
My costumes were featured in the video 911 by Lady Gaga. I experienced an overwhelming experience because I received a lot of attention. For the last month I've even working on a new costume and attempting to shoot it and also creating a new artwork called “Broken Knight”. The costume alone took almost two weeks. Right now, I am back painting and my next work is dedicated to the nightlife that I miss so much.