Local Artist Highlight: Katya Grokhovsky

She's a local artist for this year and this year only...catch her while you can. We're fortunate to have Brooklyn-based artist Katya Grokhovsky in western Michigan as the Grand Valley State University 2024-25 Padnos Distinguished Artist-in-Residence. Born in Soviet Ukraine, a teenage Katya emigrated with her family to Australia in 1992 after the fall of the U.S.S.R. Determined to become a successful artist in the United States, Katya earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011. Her intensive educational background in painting, sculpture, dance and fashion gives Katya an impressive range, permitting her to work in any one of these disciplines separately—or to combine them in a multi-disciplinary piece from painting to performance. Katya Grokhovsky is an artist, an educator and a founding director of The Immigrant Artist Biennial. Her work is included currently in the Brooklyn Museum celebration of its 200-year anniversary: The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition. I had the pleasure of attending her artist’s talk at GVSU the day after I interviewed her, and I’ve incorporated that experience here as well.

When is the last time you lived in Ukraine and when is the last time you visited? We left in 1992 to go to Australia, so I am an Australian citizen, a Ukrainian citizen, soon to be an American citizen—in a year exactly. Most of my family is in Australia. When the Soviet Union fell, America, Europe, Canada and Australia were taking everyone who was running from a collapsed empire. I go to Australia once a year…it has become non-negotiable for me…usually during the summer, because of the academic schedule. But, I imagined myself being here, in the U.S. I was always very creative and artistic. New York was the place...or Europe. I’ve only been back to Ukraine once…early 2000s…to check on the remaining family.  

Sometimes, I involve my parents in my work. I interview them for an idea of what they went through…but I work with their stories in a removed way, abstracted. It was very traumatic for them, losing jobs overnight because the government fell…an extreme, extreme shift. Uniforms were gone in school, suddenly. We all grew up in Soviet Ukraine. It’s part of my work that ideology can collapse overnight. I was a witness to it…but in a very young mind, whereas my parents, my grandmother, understood more about what was actually happening around us. Australia was a complete culture shock. We were much more familiar with the U.S. and European culture…Ukraine is located in the center of Europe after all. But…Australia was where we ended up.  

Ukraine. It has been a while. And, of course, the minute I actually set up to do a research project in Kyiv it was 2022. It was supposed to be for three months, and now that artist residency no longer exists. I’m from Odesa, which is a southern port city. They bombed it today again, because of the port, the grain shipping to the world. I grew up on the beach there…Black Sea, I loved that city. I was 15 when I left and pretty conscious—old enough to not want to go. Everything collapsed.... I remember maybe a year of it, but my parents know much more…all the years preceding…the whole structure of the Soviet Union collapsing.

In her artist’s talk at GVSU, Katya speaks about reconstructing places in her mind. She says, “Childhood has never lost its magic.” But she also says about portraying her experience, “It is important not to be literal. There is a layering, a masking. It’s okay to just enjoy the humor, the absurdity, the difficult material.”

So, Australia was the first part of your immigration pathway. What stands out to you about Australia? Australia is so far geographically—like Mars—so much space and not many people. Very spread out and relatively unpopulated. It’s humongous and beautiful and wild, but then the urban life there is really good. I mean it's a good country. It was just culturally strange to us—my family—we're city people, and we did not drive at the time. In the U.S., everyone seems very comfy. We were not comfy…always dressed to the nines, because ‘you have to show your best.’ Very, very, very different culturally. I remember not understanding how to fit into the culture, and of course not speaking English. We were part of the immigrant community immediately—Greeks and Polish and Ukrainians and Russians and whomever. I kept leaving and coming back to Australia. I wanted the world.

In her artist’s talk at GVSU, Katya talks about the importance of her status as a double immigrant to her work. She had to jump into places she knew nothing about and learn through failure. Nothing is a waste—it’s part of the process. She finds her place next to her heroes…Yoko Ono, Carolee Schneemann, Louise Bourgeois, Dada, Fluxus, conceptual and feminist artists. She says she had to “Learn by doing. Jump in. Art is my home. Art is my country. Move in. Begin. No one is coming.”

You attended the masters’ program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), which is a top art program in the U.S. I ask this for all the art students out there…what do you think that SAIC saw in you that they said “Yes, we want her in our graduate program”? New York was calling too, but I chose Chicago for my student city. Something about that museum school stood out—I wanted to be part of art history...I was here…Georgia O’Keeffe was here…. I wanted an elite school to give me a start in the U.S. and a proper introduction to the art world. One thing about SAIC is that ‘big feminist women’ seemed to be in charge—that was important to me to have powerful female faculty members whom I could go to for advice. To this day, I have them in my camp. My first years in New York were difficult, but I still had Chicago—my ‘American hometown.’ I still have a connection to the school, and I keep coming back in various ways.

I am told my Chicago professors remember me as a provocateur—that's the word. In hindsight, I think they’re right. How I approached things was fearless. I don't care much about what people think, what people say…what the trends are. If you don't show an energy and attention to what you're doing…enthusiasm…then nobody cares. I'm all about energy. They saw I was committed—this was do or die for me. I flew from Australia to Chicago for the interview—I was adamant that I needed to be there in person. I brought a little of my work physically, which is a rare thing to do. They had my portfolio digitally projected, but I brought bits and pieces and parts. I dressed up, like ‘Here I am, I'm going to perform.’ I felt I'm not playing around…I am getting in. Art is not easy. It takes a lot from you. If I didn't love it, I couldn’t do it. People think maybe art is a luxury…no, I will fight you on that. Art saves me.

What drew you to western Michigan and GVSU? I did the Ox-Bow residency (which is SAIC-connected) in Holland in 2017, and I took a class there during grad school. I did ArtPrize once before, maybe 12 years ago. This is my 4th academic residency in two years all over the country. I am calling this my ‘Great American Tour.’ I don’t choose the place so much as I look for the space and support for my art, and wherever that is, that is where I will be. Over the years, New York became tight and expensive. Also, I needed to go out and bring the world back to New York—to elevate, to get higher and bigger. And the facilities…GVSU has great sculpture facilities. I have no access to that in New York right now. The PAIR position at GVSU was a great fit…possibilities for exploration and experimentation with site, history, community, locality….

How has your experience been at GVSU. Is it what you expected? The facilities here are even better than I thought they would be—I have been able to jump into my work straight away. I'm working with several different students I hired—teamwork is really important. The resources are great, the facilities are great, people are great. The Visual Arts and Media Department is one of the largest departments I’ve ever seen…My work is my horse, and I am the cart—my work is in front of me, and I follow it. Otherwise, what is this for? Being on campus can be extremely convenient for my sometimes mad studio hours. I am working as a visiting artist—talks, lectures, workshops with students...teaching through the work. At the end of the day, I'm coming out of here with a solo show, with a new body of work, bringing it to the world.

I think my favorite thing right now here is the students that I'm working with closely, because they're situated in my practice immediately, right? These are dedicated art majors who are absolutely immersed in their disciplines and want to be something in the world, in the arts. It's really going well, energetically.

I turn to what Katya is working on in Michigan. She has a neon sign on display at Kendall’s 17 Fountain Street building in the show Coming Home. Text-based works arise out of tiny notes to herself. In her artist’s talk, she speaks of how her hand naturally wants to write in Cyrillic as a matter of muscle memory—that her handwriting in English can disintegrate into Cyrillic. She works with bodies—absence and presence. She’s obsessed with materiality (faux fur, beach balls, parachutes, teddy bears…things that flake…things with history). She has no hierarchy of materials. Always, she considers how something will disassemble, ship, store, reassemble. There is a consideration of invisible labor, female and immigrant. In her performances, often nothing happens…a portrayal of liminal spaces of waiting…for a visa…for approval….

Would you like to show me what you are working on at GVSU? Yes, I am in the gathering stage. I work out ideas with drawing and painting…that is my first nonverbal language, always. I set up home. Then, I am gathering materials. I work in this cyclical manner. It often ends up in an installation, and there’s a video that’s going to be projected. It’s constantly in the in-between zone. Performance is often at the end,  but performance is not always there physically.  

One bonus at GVSU is the filmmaking department. They have great equipment. The students are very good at filming...and they also know sound. We’re going to shoot a long form video performative project, filmed on campus and on location locally. For this, I am reinventing my rebellious persona, Bad Woman. Originally, it was a paper maché masked character…a woman who has now been in my practice for over six years. She keeps appearing when things are bad or difficult in the world…a masked entity who is allowed to rage. It’ll be a film that will start on campus, with chapters. She will wear an absurd oversized costume, planted in unfamiliar locations. Cornfields. Absolutely, I must have cornfields. And it will follow the seasons here. There’s not really a narrative…sometimes there is text, voice, sometimes sound.

One student here is welding a cage-like object that I’m going to wear. These objects become sculptures, and they will be part of the gallery installation and the video. Everything this character wears and appears in, we are making from scratch basically. I’m working on furniture pieces. This chair—Furniture City, right? Grand Rapids…I researched that when I was applying. I have never made chairs from scratch. I found a student who is really good at woodwork here. And when I say ‘chair,’ it has an absurd bodily shape…like it’s going to explode. There’s a lot of body work and bodies in my work, usually female. I am testing things—not everything makes it into a show. There’s a lot of trial and error. That’s part of the residency and part of the reason why I wanted to do it here, so I can fail also. So that I can say ‘Oh, I really don’t like this, and we’re not doing this….’ What is failure, what is success?

The art world has changed…less and less categories. People accept…now she paints...now she does this or now this…now she performs. ‘How about if you do a solo performance at your painting show?’ Not a problem. I always say ‘It’s me. It’s all me.’ You can see the gesture in my painting is the same as my sculpture. The colors…I work out the colors here, in paintings, before sculptures are made. The performance has a lot of the colors that my paintings have. All of my pastels. It’s de Kooning-esque. Right? You can see the connections, and curators who really focus on my work do not care that I do so many things. They are elevated in their game, and they’re seeing the connections. But, even if someone’s saying ‘I only like your paintings,’ that’s not an insult. That means they like something.

What's your earliest memory of having an art experience? When I was very young in Ukraine, my mom was the cultural one, a librarian. She would take me to galleries, opera, and ballet—that was her thing. I remember going to the art gallery with her in Odesa. She said I was a little critic. I would say, ‘Tcht, nooo…I don't like it’ even to famous paintings. She saw that I was drawing all the time at home. My parents put me in private lessons…when I was 5, which is a big word for a family friend teaching me. But then they found a school of art for gifted children, and I graduated at 14 with a diploma. I hope it still exists. 

We brought some of my earliest drawings to Australia from Ukraine. I drew people constantly, and a lot of it is from a window. Sometimes birds. A lot of it was yards, courtyards. We looked out to people playing soccer…people hanging out together. There were a lot of birch trees around us. There is a melancholic snow landscape that we brought, which I love. My parents have it hanging in their house. It's just snow, but nicely colored, lavender and pink. My sketches were strong—energetic, quickly made in ink.

The idea of being an immigrant is fundamental to your work—did you face doubts about moving internationally to establish an arts career? Yes, I’ve had to absolutely throw myself into things. So many of my relatives ask, ‘How are you going to survive? Why don’t you come home?’ When it comes to art, I do not listen unless it is someone who is already in the game and who has done this. People thought an artist's green card was impossible, but I did it, and I am about to become a citizen. Incredible things exist in the world. Someone is doing it. Why not me? It’s so difficult. I agree. It takes years. But you have to take risks. We are all different—people think there is one way to do this. Some people teach straight out of school—I didn’t have the right visas then. I have created my own projects and established my own career.

For me it's time and energy—art takes a lot from you. It's a positive take, but it does spend you. When I make my best work, I crawl afterwards. I am spent. There is an emptiness, which I love. It's the best feeling.

Avenue for the Arts hopes to host an exhibition of Katya’s work this winter at 106 Gallery. We’ll be back in touch with more details. For the time being, we’re grateful she has shared her experience as a practicing artist with us. Photographs can only hint at the richness of color, texture and moment in her work.