ZIMA Magazine's Artist of the Month. February winner - Ekaterina Zhingel

Catherine Gingel works with digital photography and different editing techniques. And the main themes of her works are: the inner world of man, emotions, self-determination and existentialism.

The artist graduated from the “Free Workshops” school at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, as well as from the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University. In 2024, her first solo exhibition In(finity) took place at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Catherine’s works have been exhibited in various galleries and cities around the world – Hungary (PH21 Gallery, Budapest), Italy (LoosenArt, the exhibition space Millepiani, Rome) the Netherlands (Rotterdam Photo Festival 2023), the UK and other countries. The artist also has several curatorial projects under her belt, realized mainly in Moscow.

From the author’s manifesto: “In my series, I talk about how traumatic experiences and depression have changed me and my identity. The work was inspired by the theory of the nonlinearity of time. Imagine a scenario in which time does not flow strictly from past to future, but all events occur simultaneously. I believe this concept is similar to the feeling of fear or anger, but it cannot be expressed physically. When these feelings become a habitual background of life, they change the personality. The hero of my paintings tries by all means to correct himself, to stop the movement. This inner work results in mutations that transform the character into something new, different from himself.“

Katya Granova, curator of the Artist of the Month project: “In Ekaterina Zhingel’s works, the interaction of the human body and landscape, as well as the interaction of bodies with each other, are conceptually problematized, leaving the viewer complete freedom of interpretation and reading. Laconic digital photomontages with multiple arms and legs are on the one hand a bit comical, their aesthetics reminiscent of mime theater, on the other hand they have a certain effect of horror, biomorphic glitch, and with all this – tenderness and intimacy of bodily touch.

It turns out that all of these very different qualities can coexist peacefully and contradictorily in one job. The bodies, surrealistically immersed in the landscape, raise questions about the boundaries of subject and environment, the fragmentation of memories, and the nature of the medium of photography. For me, the special charm of Catherine’s work lies in her respect for the freedom of the viewer, in her multifaceted but concise aesthetics. And how highly the judges praised her work is another indicator of its quality, depth and veracity of artistic expression.”