from horror, hell and Decay with løve

Vanya Kasatka

Сontemporary artist from the "caste of defeat", a pøet, and a musician who, through personal experience and participation, focuses on violence, mental illness, and visionary experiences within the context of a warring world and the fractured individual.

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Solo Exhibitions
2023: Cuttlefish of Anxieties and Violence, Gallery 25, Gyumri, Armenia

Group Exhibitions
2024: The Colour of Peace, Modern Art Museum, curator Vahram Muradyan, Yerevan, Armenia
2024: Glitch. Art. Br, curator Cleber Gazana, Brazil
2024: Garden, NPAK, Yerevan, Armenia
2024: 4th Annual Installation Art Festival, сurator Giorgio Granata, Armenia

Collaborations
2024: Black Metal Night, Muha Bar, Yerevan, Armenia
2023: Fond Anew | Սիրել կրկին, collaboration with director Andrey Krechetov as composer, Armenia

Sound Art
2024: Steps Down
2023: XV

Residencies
2024: NPAK (Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art, artistic residency program), curator Mariam Aleksanyan, Armenia

Publications
2024: Glitch Art Br 2024

Collections
Works are held in private collections in Russia and Armenia.

Contact
vanyakasatka93@gmail.com
telegram: +374 93 344 008

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My caste is the caste of the defeated

These are people who have lost their homes, been "canceled", struggled with drug addiction, suffered from war and state dictatorship, and marginalized individuals of all kinds and colors. I try to find them and, as much as possible, give them my voice.

BIØGRAPHY

Vanya Kasatka (b. 1993) hails from the Black Sea coast of Kuban and has lived in Krasnodar, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. He worked as a journalist, clashed with the current government through social and political activism, studied horror culture and the Russian musical underground, and wrote poetry, frequently performing across the country. He was also published as an author of horror and weird literature. This background later influenced the visual language of the artist. Today, he lives and works in Armenia.
Exodus
Acrylic, ink, and acetone on paper; 100x70 cm 2023
The radical upheaval in his life in 2022 forced Vanya Kasatka to change his name ("Kasatka" translates from Russian as Orca or Killer Whale) and take up the brush, or rather, ink and blades. This led to the creation of his first series of paintings, Cuttlefish of Anxieties and Violence, which was showcased at his solo exhibition in 2023 at Gallery 25 (Gyumri). The dissolution of relationships, the struggle with a decade-long alcohol addiction and mental illness, migration issues, and total loneliness inspired Kasatka to create a series of works on the theme of alcoholic delirium. He achieved this using "symbol-brushes" and by falling into a dark mystical trance—a bid to relive the physical and mental nightmare.

In the summer of 2024, Vanya Kasatka participated in an art residency at the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art (NPAK). The residency culminated in a group exhibition in September, where Kasatka's first installations, "Cold" and "Bladebox," were showcased.
He uses broken bank cards, blades, knives, empty ziplocks from drugs, a dark and dirty palette in the shape of a cross, chaotic application of paint, leaving behind ghostly images and an associative array of forms.

In 2023, Kasatka composed music for the art video Fond Anew by director Andrey Krechetov, featuring the poems of Armenian poet Paruyr Sevak, and released the unsettling album XV. This album, with its sharp and grim imagery, tempo, and field recording method, explores themes of restarting life in a new country for a migrant and the challenges faced when war is total—both external and internal. In 2024, the artist created a new series of works, centered on reinterpreting the archetype of Motherland as Motherland Mara in a global context. He is preparing to release collections of poetry and prose, an art book, and a full-length noise hip hop album, and is creating the sound art diptych Steps Down specifically for exhibitions.




Kasatka continues to explore themes of deep and external horror, focusing on mental deviations and addictions, using quasi-religious symbols and creating his own. He reflects on themes of terrorism and violence. Broken atmospheric music at the intersection of poetry and noise complements the visual series, creating a unique anxious experience of fragmentation and quiet scream.
Vanya Kasatka — Le Froid (Холод)
Le Froid est une poésie faisant partie d'une installation complexe du même nom, dédiée au Froid en tant que protecteur, une divinité capable d'inverser le cycle du samsara, de le briser, de le détruire et d'ensevelir sous la neige ceux qui, aujourd'hui, versent le sang à travers le monde au nom de valeurs mensongères, d'intérêts politiques et de leur propre arrogance.

Traduction de Vsevolod Anisimov.
"Everything I do is driven by fear. It is the basic emotion I suffer from. We kill out of fear, drink out of fear, cut ourselves out of fear. These are all attempts to overcome the internal and external horrors of the surrounding world. I speak the language of fear as a participant, not as an observer, so that the viewer can look at my work and say to themselves, 'God, I feel the same way, I understand this guy—the same blood runs through my veins.'" Horror unites; encountering it is not always fatal and a one-way ticket. The dictate of loneliness loses its power, the black sun makes people slightly insane, but also serves the gift of connection, finding 'one's own' among 'strangers.' Here and now, you may feel certain that you are alone against the whole world and against yourself, but that is not the case. There are many of us, which is why I extend my cut hand to you—pushing off the bottom is always easier together." — Vanya Kasatka
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