Ekaterina G. Kazachenko was born May 24, 1980 in Russia into a pretty typical Soviet Union family for the time.

Her parents are from the godforsaken wilderness and came to the city to study and became engineers—a very popular profession back then. There they philosophized in the kitchen until morning, fell in love, got married and gave birth to Ekaterina and her brother. They kicked around the country and remained faithful to their ideals. They absorbed the world like sponges and believed that world prosperity was just around the corner. They lived so happily for a while in an era which we will never know again.

In their five-meter kitchen they dreamt of space exploration and new scientific discoveries. Her parents believed that anything was possible. That the worst was over and that there would no longer be war and famine. But they never could have believed that they would witness the collapse of the entire system and the whole country along with it. They learned the hard way that it was now everyone for themselves and that they would somehow have to align themselves with a shaky new world—which they did. They were afraid but never gave up.

For young Ekaterina, summers became the best times—complete with a nice break from school. Her grandparents were beekeepers and faithful inhabitants of the village. In order to keep her away from the bustling city her parents preferred that she stay with her grandparents in the bosom of nature with the opportunity to breathe fresh air, to be fed with vitamins from the garden and the forest and to improve health for the next year of school. And simply to just have some true summer fun.

It was there where she first discovered the satisfaction of observing nature. Each year she began to bring the necessary materials for drawing and set tasks and objectives for herself. Everything became a fascinating subject worthy of study. Thus her attraction to drawing which originated gradually has grown into a strong predilection for painting and has largely determined her destiny as an artist.

At age 15 she enrolled at the College of Art in her hometown of Perm, marking the beginning of a thirteen-year formal education in painting. During that time she spent seven years at The Academy of Art and Culture under Professor Evgeny Shirokov and received two United Artists fellowships to the prestigious I. Repin Academic Cottage under the supervision of nationally acclaimed artist Anatoly Levitin. She spent countless hours on Plein air and was accepted into the PHD Program in the Russian Academy of Arts in Kazan City under Professors Abrek Abzgildin and Farid Yakupov. She was also selected twice to participate in the National Art Exhibition in Moscow and much of her work has been displayed and sold at galleries and exhibitions in Perm, Kazan and Moscow.

Ekaterina’s work can best be viewed as a reflection of her Russian heritage through a temporal prism. Memories of childhood and experiences from adolescence remain important in helping to define her path as an artist, and uncovering connections between generations is one of her greatest challenges. History is the common denominator in her work as she tries to find and capture generational parallels which bridge the past and present by comparing and analyzing what unites us and what we have in common with each other, regardless of nationality; how things used to be and what was lost in the course of historical change—where we’re headed and what we’ve left behind.

Learn more about Ekaterina HERE. And see what’s current on her Instagram account.

Jack Liebo, Ceramicist

I spent my youth in south suburban Minneapolis, rambling near the Minnesota River and camping in the northern forests. In an era that lacked electronic distractions or streaming videos I learned to embrace nature. I studied ceramics in the 1970’s at the University of Minnesota under Warren MacKenzie. This experience helped me discover an art form that connected me to the earth in a special way. I cherish the the natural world and since, have emotionally expressed myself through use of soil and fire.

Visit Jack Liebo with the Glencoe Ceramics group.