- Her dance adorned stages worldwide, from the Bolshoi to distant lands, like a rising star
- Katerina Kudryavtseva brought together culture and art in the whirlwind of creative gatherings, merging with the chaos of the mind
- Katerina conveys, “Painting with my feet frees the mind, revealing a primal and liberating enigma, an alien realm
Katerina Kudryavtseva is a professional ballerina with a fate as twisted as a labyrinth. She stands triumphant as the laureate of the All-Russian Competition of Ballet Artists and Choreographers, bathed in the light of the Presidential Federal Scholarship. Her dance graced the grand stages of the Bolshoi Theatre, the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre, and the theatres of distant lands—Greece, Japan, Serbia, and Macedonia. She was like a star ascending to the skies.
Yet the cruel hand of destiny cast a shadow. The diagnosis, “multiple sclerosis,” became the storm cloud on her artistic horizon. A tempest that would push her artistry into uncharted realms. Katerina’s spirit, unbroken, earned three higher degrees, defended a doctoral dissertation, and authored a monograph. The black belt in karate kushin-kai, an emblem of her indomitable will. She became a teacher, an artist whose canvas stretched beyond the physical, a journalist, and a writer who penned two books. Her presence was a vortex of creative gatherings where culture and art merged with the chaos of the mind.
From her earliest days, Katerina wielded a brush, but the canvas of self-doubt and the fear of grandeur held her talents in check. Then came the diagnosis, and the artist within reawakened. A revelation dawned: the more unfamiliar the method, the less the mind’s grip. With her left hand, she conquered the abyss of immense canvases. With her feet, she descended into the depths of the subconscious.
Katerina whispers, “When you paint with your feet, the mind relinquishes control, for it is an enigma, an alien realm. That’s when you unveil something primal and free.”
In the dark of January 2023, her masterpiece, “Heavenly Birds,” born from her feet, soared to claim the pinnacle in an international art competition in London. Its name is a testament to the celestial hues within: heavenly blues, silvery whispers, and golden echoes. In direct communion with the heavens, veiled in the garments of saints, the strokes are an ode to birds in flight.
Names may adorn her creations, but Katerina’s art knows no bounds. They are mosaics of emotion, hues, and whispers from the hidden depths.
Some paintings found new homes through gifts, others through transactions. Most reside on display, immortalising echoes of her spirit. “Self-Portrait,” a gift to the renowned musician Valery Manukyan, hangs as a testament.
“Illuminations,” an oil masterpiece. Katerina’s passion ignites the essence of viscous oil paints, yielding to time’s patient caress. The delight is akin to a child lost in the earth’s embrace. Incense rises from the strokes.
The foot-painted canvases, abstract in form, invite every observer to unearth their narrative, colored by personal perceptions. They are emotions spun from colours, born from inspiration or feeling. The art is an introspective journey devoid of rationality.
“Night on the Steamship,” a creation birthed from the interplay of deep blues and azure whispers. Its name was a revelation that followed the strokes.
Within these foot-painted canvases, hints of handcrafted additions emerge, subtly melding with the tapestry. “Fireworks” employs techniques where colour dances with a cotton brush as well as the caress of a dry brush.
It’s these foot-painted masterpieces that birthed the Katrin brand—garments adorned with the whispers of her canvas.
Dance, an ethereal reverie, knows no constraints of time, place, or form. Katerina Kudryavtseva continues her dance, an enigma of the psyche, within the realm of the canvas.
About Author:Vera Chistyakova is an art critique from Russia.Vera Alexandrovna Chistyakova is a graduate of the Moscow State Academy of Choreography, a critic and historian of ballet, author of articles on the subject of art in the “New Russian Encyclopedia”, the encyclopedia “Bolshoi Theater of Russia”, newspapers and magazines: “Ballet”, “Line”, “Theatrical Life”, “World Dance”, “Belly Dance”, “Literary newspaper”, newspaper “Culture”. From 2003 till now she is a ballet columnist of the newspaper “Dancing Klondike”
