The art of freedom: how Natali Nishchuk rethinks the scale of the spirit and the body

Meet Natali Nishchuk — a contemporary Russian artist whose work explores freedom, the scale of the spirit and their connection to the body. Her art weaves together philosophy, sensuality and deep reflection on human nature.

In issue 31 of our #ourstudents series, Natali shares her take on art, inspiration and the spiritual experience that became the foundation of her practice, and tells us how the program reshaped the way she sees the world and makes work.

— How did you come to contemporary art?

I came to contemporary art naturally. It drew me in and took me over completely. I was simply trying to understand it and, without realising it, I was already in dialogue with the works, enriching my own inner experience. I started meeting artists so I could talk about their work and about their outlook in general. A new and alluring world of big meanings was opening up to me. At some point I realized that what I loved could become my life’s work. It was a dizzying thought back then: leave the office and make art? Was that even possible?!

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— Your early works, back when you joined the program, had a lot of surrealism in them. Tell us why that language speaks to you.

That was when I began bringing selfhood into my work. Surrealism in painting was my first step towards working with the theme of scale. Those pieces came out of an inner, not-fully-conscious urge to push past boundaries — in this case the boundaries of the rational mind — and reach the subconscious. I love psychology, and I know that all the answers, the ones that are right and honest for us, are already inside us. I made work in which anyone could recognize their own experience and, in dialogue with the piece, sink into it. Once you discover what the work is about for you, you can ask yourself the right questions and find your answers.

Honestly, at the time I was in that same search for answers and for solid ground. I used painting to mirror my life, and through painting I got to know myself. Surrealism is a way of recognising truth through what does not exist. There is incredible freedom in that.

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— How has your art changed over the course of the program?

During the program I threw myself into experimenting. I changed my approach and moved from a dialogue with the mind to a dialogue with the heart — from perceiving the world through thought to a sensual, emotional experience of feeling and the body. I wanted more freedom and more honesty in the conversation art makes possible. I wanted my art to be alive and real, and for that it had to carry depth. But to reflect that depth, I first had to find it in myself. That whole stretch of relentless searching became a process of going deeper and mirroring what I found, and through the mirroring, going deeper still.

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— There are many references to your spiritual experience in your work. Tell us about your path 🙏🏻.

In life I am an explorer: I have lived in different Russian cities and abroad, and I have changed careers and passions more than once. I have spent my whole life searching for myself, carefully saving up every experience along the way. When you are searching, everything has its purpose, and looking back I can see how experiences that seemed completely unrelated built, step by step, the foundation for where I am now.

— Your art does not so much unpack specific themes as open doors into a larger philosophy of how we perceive human life. What questions do you put to the viewer? And what spiritual questions occupy you personally?

I care about the questions of how a person comes to know themselves at the deepest level and reaches their inner source of strength. That is what inner scale is, and it leads to freedom. There is a line I feel close to: freedom is the courage to be yourself. I would add that you need courage not only to let yourself be honest and live your own life for real, but also to decide to set out on the journey towards meeting yourself.

Everything is a choice. I see a cycle in it, where a person is both the cause and the effect of everything. In my art I raise questions that widen the limits of how we see and define ourselves.

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— Tell us about a work of yours, or several. We would love to get into them.

The program led me to start my second sensual series. These works come out of personal experience and reflect an inner, private relationship with the world and with myself. It is an attempt to understand the nature of a human being who can feel large and small at once, exalted and earthbound, holding a boundless inner world that is nevertheless born of the body and confined by it.

This person is a great spirit, an embodied cosmic and impossibly complex life force, forever busy with everyday matters and reaching for a balance between freedom and the infinite.

The works hold the wish to break out of one’s own limiting beliefs, the dissolving and merging with what is within, the acceptance of the self and the arrival at a source of strength. You would think such inner shifts would change everything, yet often they turn out to be no more than a storm in a teacup. Again and again, every one of us runs into our own limiting beliefs.

In the same way, the figures in my works stay bound by the space of the canvas. However much they long for greatness or want to become part of something larger, we find ourselves right there with them, once again on the far side of the glass of life.

And is there an end to this cycle?

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— What matters to you in art, both your own and art in general, for it to catch you and resonate?

I love very different directions in art, each offering its own way of speaking to the viewer. What matters to me is sincerity in a work and the experience the artist wants to share. How deep a mark can that experience leave in me?

I am drawn to statements about difficult, urgent subjects, and about eternal ones too. These days art does not have to be loud and blazing, impossible to walk past unnoticed — though I love that as well. The deeper I go into the art world, the more I value things that are subtle and hard to pin down.

Lately I have been especially interested in artists who are conceptually complex and intellectual. Apparently I am reaching for more complexity myself.

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— Are there artists whose work you admire or find inspiring? If so, why? Feel free to attach photos of your favourite pieces.

Right now there are so many artists I like that it is hard to single one out. But I love the work of Pierre Huyghe. His installations are networks of objects, like links forming a DNA of meanings. They pull the viewer into a new reality, one that keeps developing and stays tied to the here and now.

The photo shows his 2021 piece. In it he thinks through nature, both the real and the artificial. The action unfolds in real time: the viewer watches an artificial intelligence transform and evolve. Setting that process alongside life-giving nature opens up some very deep reflection.

I also want to mention Wolfgang Tillmans. His way of looking gives me goosebumps — moving from the abstract and general to the very close and, in that closeness, the particular. I feel close to his sensuality and his bold freedom. He is an artist whose work you cannot narrow down to a single piece. You want to show several at once, because they are so different, yet together they form a whole picture of his vision. A great many of his works fill me with admiration.

— If you could make a work together with any artist from any period, who would it be? And why would working with them interest you?

I would want to make a project with Michelangelo. I am interested in thinking about human nature in a timeless context, in examining how lofty, monumental ideals square with contemporary reality. It would be a deep dive into continuity and contrast, and what they mean in the long run.

I would also love to work with Wolfgang Tillmans as a model, to express freedom through myself.

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— Has our program been useful to you? If so, why?

For me this program was not just about solving professional problems — art historical expertise, understanding how the art market works, seeing clearly the stages of an artist’s development — that was what I came for in the first place. The most valuable thing that happened was the change on a personal level.

I learned to think differently and to feel differently about myself. That inner growth showed up not only in my art practice but in many other areas of life. Maria teaches you to think and speak in the language of art, creating fertile ground for your own selfhood to come through in the work. She gently highlights your strengths and deepens your perception, helping the creative person in you open up.