Art
Sofiia Stepanova
12 October 2026
Art
Sofiia Stepanova
12 October 2026
Q: In your work, there seems to be a tension between recognisable imagery and something almost abstract. Where do you see the boundary between figuration and abstraction?
A: I don’t really think about it as a boundary between figuration and abstraction. My work is figurative, for me it’s more about how far an image can shift while still remaining recognisable. A body can become part of a landscape, or move somewhere between human and animal. I’m interested in the moment when you recognise something, but you can’t fully define what you’re looking at. I want to keep that uncertainty open rather than resolve the image completely.
Q: You work with painting at a time when we are surrounded by an overwhelming number of digital images. Why does painting remain a necessary medium for you?
A: For me, painting has a different energy and purpose from a digital image. The texture, the gesture, the resistance of the surface, the way paint behaves, all of this asks for a completely different kind of attention. I spend so much of my life surrounded by digital images, but painting slows you down, it has a physical presence that simply can’t be replaced.
Q: There is a sense of both fragility and strength in your work. Do you see this duality in your paintings as well?
A: Absolutely. I think this duality is very present in my work, but I’m also interested in everything that exists in between. Fragility and strength are not necessarily opposites for me. One can turn into the other. There is this cyclical movement between release and control, vulnerability and resistance. I think my figures often exist somewhere inside that movement rather than representing one fixed state.
Q: What happens when your intuition and your aesthetic judgement disagree? Which one do you tend to follow?
A: I usually try to follow intuition. For me, the most interesting things in a painting often happen before I completely understand why I’m doing them. Sometimes you start with an idea for a series or a composition, and you put a certain meaning into a figure, but then intuition tells you that you have to let it go, even when you are very attached to it. As they say, kill your darlings.
I think this is also something I consider in relation to aesthetics, the world you create can also become a prison for you. Intuition and painting constantly challenge that. Sometimes you have to take a risk and let go of something you have been holding onto, simply because it doesn’t work anymore, it doesn’t awaken the feeling your intuition has been following. That’s usually the difficult part, and sometimes it takes me a long time.
"But once I let go, something new can happen, and I learn something from it. Painting keeps building me as a person."
Q: What is more important to you in a painting — the story or the feeling it creates?
A: The feeling is more important to me. There are elements in my paintings that can suggest a narrative, figures, gestures, encounters, sometimes something archetypal or mythological, but I don’t want to explain a specific story. I want there to be a sense that something is happening without it being completely clear what that is. I think this ambiguity can create a sense of ritual, as if we are witnessing something that has its own logic but remains partly inaccessible.
Q: What does it mean to you today to be an artist from Kyiv working in Berlin? Has your relationship to this identity changed since moving?
A: I think it has changed a lot since moving. When I first came to Berlin, I was trying to understand a completely different art environment, and maybe also trying to distance myself from some parts of my traditional education. With time, I started to understand how deeply this background is actually rooted in me, especially my relationship to painting, the body, symbolism and materiality. Today I strongly feel that my roots and where I come from are a fundamental part of the emotional basis of my practice.
All Images: Joseph Kadow
Q: Berlin has a very particular art scene. Has the city influenced your visual language, or has it rather given you the freedom to pursue what you already wanted to do?
A: When I first entered the Berlin art scene, I felt quite intimidated. I had the feeling that no one wanted to get their hands dirty making art anymore, everything felt very slick, cold and distant. Coming from a traditional painting background, I wasn’t sure where I belonged in it. But over the last few years I feel that something has shifted, I see more interest in materiality and making again, which I feel much more connected to. In a strange way, Berlin also helped me understand more clearly what I want to do.
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