For the «Fathers and Children» section, artist Maxim Ima chose three works by his daughter, Eva. She is ten years old today. In 2023, her father hosted her first one-day exhibition in his own studio, and he continues to preserve her favorite drawings in an unusual way—by turning them into tattoos.
«Eva, like many kids, changes her career aspirations every month. But she still sees herself as an artist in the future and draws a tremendous amount. Sometimes her ideas truly surprise me. In 2023, I even organized a one-day exhibition for her in our studio. I wanted to show that children’s creativity can be taken absolutely seriously.»
«My first piece was three grandmothers at a bus stop. I really like their faces—there’s something mysterious about them. Eva is always very slow to choose a color palette; she might borrow my markers, and then when she finishes drawing, she’ll talk about the story behind it for another thirty minutes. For her, a drawing never exists on its own—it always has a narrative.»
«At some point, I noticed that Eva began to think not just in images, but also in text. We visit exhibitions frequently, and there is so much art of various artists at home, and gradually she started adding words to her drawings, and then began to construct an entire piece based on text. This led to the work „The Past, ” where the word itself is covered in a web. I think this is a very mature statement for a ten-year-old.“
«There is another tradition that is very important to me. About ten tattoos have been made from Evina’s drawings—mine and my friends'. Every year, I choose a new drawing and transfer it onto my body. I want to preserve this process, to see how her artistic language evolves, how her drawings mature. This is probably the most unique family archive one could imagine.»
