Caroline Walker's Choice Award 2026

Katya Granova

Picnic on the Meadow

Jackson's Art Prize 2026
Oil, Oil Stick
Canvas
100 x 140 cm

“My practice is driven by a desire to penetrate the past and resist the irreversibility of time. I use vintage photographs as a starting point for painting. These images offer a view into collective history, yet they are inherently biased, shaped by the choices of the person behind the lens. Through their imperfections, they present fleeting moments of the past: preserved for viewing, but never truly accessible. I alter, abstract and fictionalise photographic images drawn from family archives or flea markets, leaving traces of my own bodily movement through gestural marks. By translating the signs of ‘oldness’ into paint, I take control of the photograph’s visual dynamics, assert my subjective position, and construct a formal space for thinking through painting. Working at a large scale allows the canvas to function not as a window, but as a portal to the past, into which I can insert my presence. My paintings serve as an entry point to a sensual engagement with a remembered reality, captured in images and shaped by my resistance to the subjectivity of history.”