Varvara Uhlik 💫 #NCArtistInFocus
@varavarka (b.1997, Ukraine, based in London) is a visual artist, whose work explores the inherited complexities of post-Soviet identity, rooted in her personal history and the landscapes of her upbringing in Eastern Ukraine. Through sculpture, installation, photography, and video, she navigates themes of generational trauma, cultural memory, and the enduring shadow of Russian imperialism.
"I’m submitted two sculptural works Swan and Slide to New Contemporaries, both reimagined from my childhood in post-Soviet Ukraine. These pieces reflect on what it means to grow up within a post-Soviet reality, carrying inherited traumas and cultural memories that continue to shape my generation. Swan comes from a common practice of decorating public spaces with used materials in Soviet Ukraine and Slide is reconstructed from memory, referencing the playground I grew up playing on in the east of Ukraine.
The main themes I work with are Post-Soviet identity, the decolonisation of Ukraine, and the fragile, shifting nature of memory - especially the ways we attempt to hold onto it as it transforms or disappears.
My lived experiences growing up in eastern Ukraine, and how those memories and transformations influence who I am today - are at the core of what drives my work."
Exhibitions include reGeneration, Photo Élysée Museum, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2025 and her solo show at Liquida Photofestival, Turin, Italy, 2025. Varvara received the Kenneth Armitage Young Sculptor Prize 2025 and was selected as British Journal of Photography's "Ones to Watch" 2024.
Find out more about the artists and exhibitions,
@SouthLondonGallery 30 January – 12 April and
@MIMAuseful 8 May – 16 August, on the New Contemporaries website.
Images: Slide, Varvara Uhlik taken by Hydar Dewachi & Swan.
#NewContemporaries #SouthLondonGallery #MIMA #EmergingArtists
