The series of works “Shady backstage” is made in the technique of drypoint, when the image is created not by etching the metal board with acid, but by scratching lines and strokes on the metal with a special needle. This artistic technique refers to the engravings of the Art Nouveau era. They were often used as illustrations for women’s magazines and poetry collections, and the main motifs of the drawings were natural and floral. Instead of the subjects of exquisite estates and gardens characteristic of such images, Ekaterina turns to images of a very different everyday life — the socio-cultural phenomenon of housing and communal art, most vividly manifested in sculptural compositions in the polygardens of residential buildings, exhibitions-interventions in front of entrances and homemade flowerbed gardens. For several years, the artist has been observing such compositions at the entrance of her house, where the janitor assembles installations from toys. She rearranges and reassembles them depending on the season, planting different plants in the beds or forming circles of cones. The combination of two different worlds — toy and real, fictional characters reminiscent of cartoon heroes from our childhood, often anthropomorphic, and ordinary objects — gives birth to a parallel reality: it changes the space around typical houses, makes it human and cozy, gives it individuality. Familiar places change their appearance, and the world of the observer behind them becomes different. (Olga Druzhinina)

16.1×20.8 cm (35×50 cm paper), in 4 colours (red, blue, purple, black)