Silicone Bust with Hair

This silicone bust with hair is a continuation of Maria Kulikovska's experiments with non-traditional sculptural materials that open up new possibilities for performative sculpture. The artist created a copy of a part of her body from silicone, which, unlike any pre-used material, has a priori a performative base: silicone has the ability to change depending on temperature and humidity, it never freezes completely. While the soap sculptures fade in the burning rays of the sun and are destroyed by fog, wind and rain, there are no conditions for a silicone bust that have subjected it to deconstruction. Also there are no conditions that would record the silicone form. The silicone sculpture counteracts the form and transmits its constant variability, translating the cross-cutting idea of this artwork with the vanitas tradition - the rapidity of human life.

Besides the pretty specific material, Maria Kulikovska also mounted chains into the sculpture and added her own hair to the silicone. The chains restrict and hold captive the blue silicone sculpture like human's internal fears and experiences, external circumstances of conflicts or disparities can hold. In addition to social issues, Kulikovska raised the question of own trauma. When the war began and the artist's home - the Crimean Peninsula - was annexed by the russian federation, Maria Kulikovska, living in an external and internal conflict, cut off her hair, which in four years became the material for the creation of this sculpture. The artist's gesture became the continuation of the centuries-old tradition of female hair cutting during the sorrow and rebellion. Living through the process of searching of own boundaries, Maria Kulikovska created her own copy - a kind of "voodoo doll"- for her own self-liberation.