Maryna Naumchuk. Artistic Statement

My path to art began with hands and words: I am a philologist by first degree, but I started weaving while still in school.

Textiles captivated me as a language that can be spoken without words — through touch, rhythm, repetition. For me, craft has always been more than just technology: it is the boundary between body and image, between everyday life and ritual. This is what interests me in textiles — the balance between function and aesthetics, between the applied and the artistic. Handicraft always carries an additional meaning: it inscribes time, tension, attention, and opens up the opportunity for the viewer to see more than I consciously invest.

Motherhood has significantly changed my practice, because weaving and embroidery — painstaking and time-consuming — have become almost impossible. But at the same time, the sense of tactility and presence has become more acute. I moved on to bodily practices — yoga, dance, performance. It is important for me to work with my own body as an instrument that thinks, reacts, and captures.

Performance is not theater, but it reveals both the body and the personality. I often integrate textile elements into the performance — threads, stitching, fabric. This is not just a material, but a way of being "here and now", a meditation that has a physical form. This is the key difference for me: performance is short-lived, instantaneous, but embroidery, like a sign or trace, remains for a long time. This play between the transient and the permanent is part of my expression.