Ekaterina Sieedugina (Kordeliz)

Your journey into professional art began in 2021. What triggered the decision to turn your passion into a career?

A certain chain of circumstances served as the turning point, leading me to reassess my values. “I want to live my life as an artist,” I told myself in the summer of 2021. 

By then, my life had stopped being familiar and predictable: I had become a mother, left my hometown, and stepped away from a promising career. Living in an unfamiliar city, far from my family and my usual way of life, forced me to rethink many things: it felt as if the “white noise” of public opinion and expectations had been switched off, and I began to hear myself more clearly. What do I truly want? Where is my strength? What gives me energy? Creativity.

I have a fine sensitivity to color, I look at life metaphorically, and I want to share this with the world. I want to be an artist—not as a childhood dream, but as a conscious choice of path.

I deeply believe that a person can achieve anything if they truly want to. That’s why I began to grow as an artist, devoting myself fully to this path and turning my passion into a profession.

In the first two years, I created and sold more than 50 works. This strengthened my feeling that I am exactly where I am meant to be.

Ekaterina Sieedugina (Kordeliz) | Waiting For The Thinker | 2023

You describe yourself as a self-taught artist who also learns from admired artists. How does this hybrid approach shape your creative process?

I began my journey as an artist at the age of 35, without having an academic art education. In this, I see both strength and weakness. The strength lies in preserving an intuitive perception: I am like a child who has been given materials and complete freedom to create. The weakness is the lack of a formal foundation, which I am gradually filling in through every possible means — including private lessons with artists whose mastery and path resonate with me.

This approach is very valuable to me. On the one hand, I retain my own vision and freedom of self-expression; on the other, I acquire the tools that help me bring this vision to life more precisely. In addition, I deeply value the very process of communicating with artists, exchanging experiences and stories — it is always inspiring and broadens horizons.

Ekaterina Sieedugina (Kordeliz) | Moment Of Calm | 2023

In your series “The Path to Self,” each painting represents a stage of inner transformation. How did this concept come to you?

The series began with the painting “In Anticipation of the Thinker.” This image lingered with me for a long time, but I hesitated to paint it because hyperrealism required a certain level of technical skill. Curiosity and the desire to challenge myself eventually outweighed the fear, and completing the painting became an important personal victory. 

It reflected my love of color as an independent entity that shapes the perception of everything, my interest in surrealism as a metaphorical depiction of the world, and my acceptance of solitude as the most resourceful state. In essence, the painting became my inner self-portrait at that moment.

New subjects then emerged—still with the same small objects set against exaggerated backgrounds.

Only after finishing the fourth painting did I realize that this was a series, “The Path to Oneself,” where each work tells the story of a small person in a vast world—a story of solitude, inner strength, and choice. In them, I search for answers to the questions: What sustains us from within? Where do our own resources lie? What does our comfortable reality look like? 

The series is not yet complete, and I continue to walk this path with it.

Fabric appears prominently in several of your works. What does it symbolize for you?

Dynamics, the uniqueness of lines, softness and plasticity, warmth, and an enveloping quality.

These properties of fabric help me sculpt a new reality to reveal the narrative. The play of light in the folds of silk perfectly brings out the depth and radiance of a particular color, drawing one deeper into it. And silk itself is, for me, the pinnacle of tactile delight.

“Moment of Calm” was created during your relocation. How has migration influenced your artistic voice?

Montenegro gave me a sense of safety and tranquility, which was essential for creativity. Migration always reveals a person through new experiences, and although my artistic language has not changed drastically, I became bolder in my ideas and their realization. Here I held my first solo exhibition “Color. Time. Consciousness,” dedicated to the plasticity of consciousness under the influence of society, and received a very warm response from the audience.

Of course, the move was not easy—both because of the reasons behind the migration and the need to adapt to a new country and a new art environment. Yet it is precisely such crises that strengthen and help one gain a deeper understanding of oneself.

This inner work became the foundation for the painting “A Moment of Calm,” which explores how tranquility can be found in everyday routines. Water symbolizes the unpredictability of life—sometimes calm and embracing, sometimes raging and sweeping everything away. And in this life it is simply essential to know how to find moments of peace: even in something as simple as hanging freshly washed laundry out to dry.

By the way, the painting “A Moment of Calm” was selected for the London Art Biennale 2025 among 340 works by artists from all over the world and was exhibited in July at Chelsea Old Town Hall.

Through migration I also realized that no matter how distorted reality around us may become or how unstable the environment may be, one must remain true to oneself, believe in one’s identity and purpose, and keep moving forward. This was the theme of another painting in the series—“Habitat.”

Ekaterina Sieedugina (Kordeliz) | Habitat | 2024

You often use color as a tool for introspection. What role does color play in your emotional or philosophical storytelling?

For the past several years, I have been studying color and realized that its perception is highly subjective. Throughout history, civilization has managed to assign completely opposite meanings to the very same shade. That is why I moved away from conventional associations linked to color and focused only on the physical properties of the light wave and its impact on our physical sensations. For example, the red fabric in the painting In Anticipation of the Thinker is meant to provide energy and stimulate reflection; the blue in The Short Path invites a meditative state; and the predominance of green in A Moment of Calm serves to soothe and relax.

I use color as one of the main elements of the painting, because in dialogue with the viewer it can reveal itself in unexpected ways. My role is only to give color the space for that dialogue.

What kind of inner dialogue happens while you’re painting? Do you begin with a clear idea or allow the process to guide you?

A good question, because in my practice I use both approaches. At the moment, I am working in two directions — color abstraction and surrealism.

For me, abstraction is intuitive painting. It is born directly on the canvas: I don’t use references and often don’t make sketches. I begin with a single shade and let the process guide me — adding new colors, moving layers of paint, mixing them directly on the canvas. Oil allows me to work slowly and calmly, and within a few days a unique world of colors emerges. Here I completely surrender to the flow.

With surrealism, it’s different. First comes an idea or an image connected to what concerns me at that moment. I may carry the idea of a painting for a long time, asking myself questions, writing down thoughts, sometimes making sketches. This process helps me reach the essence and express it as precisely as possible.

That’s why there are fewer such paintings, and each one becomes a complete statement.