Maria Agureeva
Artist’s statement
My job as an artist is to show how the body becomes a hybrid space where materiality of flesh is connected with an individual consciousness and identity. It is driven by the desire to change ourselves to escape social pressure, but also by the desire to find our true shape and genuine content.

In my works I focus on the tension between what is considered normal and subjective in relation to the human body: I look into how we model ourselves in the world of clichéd attractiveness, which pushes us to polish our own image just as people polish billions of images on the Internet. I am interested in exploration of the boundaries behind which the body becomes an object like any other.

There is a conflict between natural traits of our appearance and artificial standards. In my works personal and individual inevitably face standardized and imposed.

I usually work with synthetic materials, despite the fact my main theme is physicality, but to me it is a mean to stress the point that body transformation is a kind of self design which has become a modern form of religion.
Maria Agureeva was born in 1985. Graduated from the St. Petersburg State University of Technology and Design (Department of Graphic Design, 2003 - 2009), ICA (2014-2015). Artist works with installations, objects, videos, performances, sculpture. She is a participant of IX international film festival Andrey Tarkovsky "The Mirror", Ivanovo (2015)and a nominee of Kandinsky Prize (2013).
Education
The St. Petersburg State University of Technology and Design (Department of Graphic Design, 2003 — 2009)
ICA (2014-2015)

Personal exhibitions
2015
Binary promises, Parallel program of the 6-th Moscow biennale of contemporary art, Pechersky Gallery, Moscow

2014
Gardens of compromises, Museum Erarta, Saint-Petersburg

2013
Those Females Who Can Wreck the Infinite, Parallel program of the 5-th Moscow biennale of contemporary art, Pechersky Gallery, Moscow

2012
Citius, altius, fortius! Commodification, Project Fabrika together with GridchinHall, Moscow

Excavations. Ground 0, GridchinHall, Moscow

2011
Formotsvet (Form and Color) series, GridchinHall, Moscow

Formotsvet (Form and Color) series, Kadieff Gallery, Helsinki

2009
Formotsvet (Form and Color) series, AL Gallery, Saint-Petersburg

Festivals
2015
The Mirror, International film festival Andrey Tarkovsky, Ivanovo

Forma, Contemporary art festival, Moscow

Can, Contemporary art festival, Krasnodar

Selective group exhibitions
2017
Just cause, Black Ball Projects, New York

2016
Unofficial laguage, WINZAVOD Contemporary Art Center, Parallel program of the V Moscow International Biennale For Young Art, Moscow

All eyes on me, WINZAVOD Contemporary Art Center, Moscow

Nominibus trivialibus, sinonimis selectis, Moscow State University's Botanic Garden (the "Apothecary Garden"), Parallel program of the V Moscow International Biennale For Young Art, Moscow

2015
Mirrors, MMOMA, Moscow.

One within the other. Art of new and old media in the age of high-speed internet, MMOMA, Moscow.

Developing of freedom, Project Fabrika, Moscow

2013
I would have not been painting now, Parallel program of the 5-th Moscow biennale of contemporary art, Agency Art.Ru, Moscow

Nominee of the Kandinsky prize, Udarnik cinema, Moscow

State order, WINZAVOD Contemporary Art Center, Moscow

2012
Project Cena (Price) within the bounds of Special program of the III Moscow International Biennale For Young Art, Agency Art.Ru, Moscow

2011
Art in Mind, The Brick Lane Gallery, London

2010
Contemporary art festival Psikhonavtika, Saint-Petersburg

Resume, All Gallery, Saint-Petersburg

Art fairs
2017 Cosmoscow

2016 Art Prague

2015 Cosmoscow

2014 Vienna Art Fair

2013 Art Moscow

2010 Art Helsinki

2010 Art Moscow
Art fairs
2017 Vladey, Moscow

2016 Vladey, Moscow
Residences
2017 Residence Unlimited New York (from February to April)
Press
2017
Denis Paley, Silent-mag, March, 2017

2016
Zlata Adachevskaya, Eight clicks, Dialogue of Arts, January, 2016

Sergey Babkin, Interview, Wonderzine, February, 2016

2015
Olga Abramova, To Olympus in lace lingerie, Art Terrytoty, August, 2015

Anna Komissarova, The Tired of coquetry, Around art, August, 2015

Ksenia Belolutskaya , Interview, The forest magazine, June, 2015

2013
Alexandra Rudyk, Interview, Interview, November, 2013

Maria Agureeva
E-mail: maria@agureeva.com