When art becomes a means of reflecting on political identities, borders, and the right to one’s own body, it transcends mere self-expression and turns into an act of cultural diplomacy. This defines the practice of Maria Kulikovska, a Ukrainian artist who, drawing from her personal experience of forced migration, bureaucratic obstacles, and societal alienation, creates art as a direct response to the world around her.

Watercolors of resistance

Maria Kulikovska is a Ukrainian artist, sculptor, performer, and architect working at the intersection of art, activism, and corporeality. Born in 1988 in Kerch (Crimea), she became a displaced person after Russia’s occupation of the peninsula in 2014. Her work explores themes of identity, borders, feminism, human rights, and the political body. Kulikovska employs a wide range of media—from watercolor paintings and ceramics to full-body sculptures and performances, often involving her own body. Her artistic practice is deeply intertwined with her personal experience of living between physical and symbolic boundaries.

Her series of watercolor on paper, initiated in 2020, now comprises over 130 works. They are created on A4 paper obtained from various migration and bureaucratic offices — a material that inherently embodies administrative authority and control. Through her works, Kulikovska constructs a visual language of resistance: each watercolor serves as a metaphorical response to the existing borders that continue to divide the world.

"The human body becomes political, even without its own consent," the artist states. Her art speaks to both the personal and the global: on one hand, it is a documentation of her own struggle, a search for answers to the questions “Who am I? Where do I come from?” On the other, it is a universal narrative about how national identity, political status, and personal freedom become subjects of administrative control.

Today, part of this series has been acquired by the Francisco Carolinum Linz museum (Austria), which specializes in contemporary media art. Other watercolors from the series have been purchased by the FENIX Museum of Migration in Rotterdam (Netherlands), where they will become part of the permanent exhibition after the museum’s official opening on May 14, 2025. These works exist across different corners of Europe, crossing the very borders they seek to challenge.

Handcrafted art

Beyond watercolors, Kulikovska works with materials that embody a sense of history and craftsmanship. Her series "New Ceramics"—a collection of hand-painted plates created during her artistic residency at OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH in 2022—was acquired by the Francisco Carolinum museum. During this residency, the artist worked at Gmundener Keramik, the oldest ceramics manufactory in Europe, where she had the opportunity to experiment with traditional techniques.

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The hand-painted plates become vessels of memory, embedding the artist’s personal reflections on the experience of losing home, violence, and transformation within their ornaments and color compositions. Like Kulikovska’s soap sculptures, ceramics is a fragile yet resilient material—this duality serves as a key element of her artistic language.

In addition to ceramics, Francisco Carolinum acquired another significant work by Kulikovska—"Shoted Figure". This bullet-riddled soap sculpture embodies the pain and shock of events in Ukraine, particularly the traumas inflicted on women by war.

The form and material create an atmosphere of fragility: the sculpture appears to be melting, yet at the same time, it is frozen in a moment of pain and suffering. A layer of transparent epoxy resin coats the surface, encasing the vibrant inner layers—symbolizing skin that conceals but also partially exposes wounds. This work speaks not only to physical but also psychological vulnerability—the perforations on the sculpture’s body serve as a stark reminder of the devaluation of human life in war.

Another landmark work by Kulikovska is a full-sized sculptural cast of her body, now installed in the public space of Jøssingfjord Museum (Norway) and acquired for its permanent collection. Inside the sculpture, flowers gathered at the border with occupied Crimea and bullet casings from the Donetsk region are concealed—two materials that speak of life and death, separation and the longing for return.

This figure is frozen in a moment of waiting, gazing toward the horizon as if searching for a future yet to come. It reflects the artist’s personal experience of being forced to leave her home due to war, yet never abandoning the hope of return.

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Shattered sculpture

A significant milestone in Kulikovska’s artistic career was the inclusion of her sculptural series "Homo Bulla – Human as a Soap Bubble. Replica" in the Deutsche Telekom Art Collection—one of the most prominent collections of Eastern European art in the Western world. Her works are displayed alongside artists such as Paweł Althamer (Poland), Aleksandra Domanović (Novi Sad, former Yugoslavia), Geta Brătescu (Romania), Sanja Iveković (Croatia), and Aneta Grzeszykowska (Poland), who also explore themes of identity, memory, and corporeality.

The Homo Bulla sculptural triptych was nominated for the international contemporary art prize UK/raine at Saatchi Gallery (UK) in 2015. Its replica was created after the original series was destroyed in 2014 during the occupation of Donetsk. At that time, pro-Russian militants seized the IZOLYATSIA art center and publicly executed her sculptures by gunfire. In response to this act of violence, Kulikovska staged the performance "Happy Birthday" in London, where she smashed one of her soap sculptures with a hammer.

Following the London exhibition, the triptych was displayed at Królikarnia Palace in Warsaw and was eventually acquired by the Deutsche Telekom Art Collection. Today, all three sculptures are installed at the company’s headquarters in Bonn, Germany. The Deutsche Telekom Art Collection actively engages with its holdings, generating new interpretations and curating exhibitions across Europe, thereby expanding the discourse on Eastern European art within a global context.

The body as material

The sculpture "Green Figure," acquired by Double Q Gallery (Hungary/Hong Kong), continues Maria Kulikovska’s performative experiments with full-sized casts of her own body. Made from epoxy resin, the work explores the relationship between the body, material, and the passage of time. The artist frequently employs unstable, ephemeral materials such as soap, wax, and chocolate; however, in this case, she uses epoxy resin to preserve the body in a durable, almost eternal state.

"Green Figure" extends Kulikovska’s previous series "Carpe Diem" and "Memento Mori – Remember Mortality," a project consisting of seven green body casts created in 2017 for a private collection and installed in PARK3020 (Lviv region). In these works, she examines the concept of bodily memory, the fragility and impermanence of human existence, using her own body as a medium to encapsulate trauma and experience.

While creating "Memento Mori," the artist referenced classical architectural imagery, particularly caryatids—female figures used as structural supports in ancient Greek architecture. Reinterpreted in a contemporary context, this motif alludes to women bearing the weight of social, political, and military violence while simultaneously embodying resilience and strength.

This sculptural project also resonates with the work of Polish sculptor Alina Szapocznikow (1926–1973), who experimented with polyester resins to create semi-transparent human body sculptures. Like Kulikovska, Szapocznikow documented pain and the vulnerability of human existence through materiality. Their life stories share striking parallels: during World War II, the Polish artist was forced to leave her hometown due to occupation—just as Kulikovska was unable to return to Crimea after 2014.

Kulikovska’s work at Double Q Gallery is exhibited alongside key figures of Eastern European art, including Geta Brătescu (Romania), Dóra Maurer (Hungary), Vera Molnar (Hungary), and Magdalena Abakanowicz (Poland)—one of Kulikovska’s artistic inspirations. Abakanowicz explored themes of trauma, collective memory, and corporeality, creating sculptural figures that expressed the tension between individuality and mass identity—an aspect that also plays a crucial role in Kulikovska’s practice.

Maria Kulikovska’s presence in European museum collections and public spaces extends beyond mere exhibition activity—her works exist within a space of dialogue, raising questions about borders, corporeality, and human vulnerability in the face of violence.

Watercolors on bureaucratic paper, shooted figures, sculptures filled with flowers and bullet casings, hand-painted ceramic plates—all these elements form a cohesive artistic statement on trauma, memory, and resistance. Within museum exhibitions, they interact with new contexts and audiences, compelling viewers to reconsider conflicts not only as political phenomena but also as deeply personal tragedies.

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Article by Sviatoslav Mykhailov
Cultural Projects Manager

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This text is also available in Ukrainian at Sensor Media.