Ashes

Three layer hand-pulled serigraph with Putin's ashes incorporated directly into the printmaking
Coventry rag 290gsm
Deckled edges
Edition of 100
Signed & numbered by the artist

Every tenth print in the edition (#1, #11, etc) is hand-embellished by Nadya, and they are distributed at random in sequential order. The product thumbnail (print #1) shows one of the embellished prints.

From the Studio:

This print edition incorporates Vladimir Putin’s ashes, created by artist Nadya Tolokonnikova, founder of the feminist art movement Pussy Riot.
In 2022, Pussy Riot members burned a giant effigy of the Russian president to protest his leadership. Ash from the remains of the fire was gathered and ground into a fine powder.

During the printmaking process the ash powder is added directly to the screen and as the squeegee is pulled across the surface, it deposits both the ink and the ash onto the paper underneath. Alternatively, a brayer is used instead of a squeegee in the black ink layer, preventing the entirety of the layer from being printed and allowing portions of the silver underneath to shine through.

Smooth, black, glossy ink contrasts against the harsh grit of the ash and metallic silvers. Each print in the edition is unique as the ash and ink combine in unpredictable ways, creating evolving patterns throughout the process that give the paper a scorched appearance - both visually and texturally.

From the Artist:

There’s no art genre I haven’t tried—because why not? Performance, music, painting, printmaking—it’s the core idea and attitude that weave them all together. In this ASHES work, I use the Old Slavonic style of calligraphy called "vyaz'." Working with this calligraphy is my meditation on my country's complex history, a history filled with both pain and hope.

This print edition, incorporating Vladimir Putin’s ashes, extends the ritual of burning his effigy in 2022—a defiant act of protest—into material form.

Performance sparks the process; printmaking preserves it. Each piece becomes a tangible relic of resistance.

Artist Bio:

Conceptual performance artist and activist Nadya Tolokonnikova is the creator of Pussy Riot, a global feminist art movement. She was sentenced in 2012 to 2 years' imprisonment following an anti-Putin performance; Punk Prayer. Punk Prayer was named by The Guardian among the ‘best art pieces of the 21st century’.

Tolokonnikova's Putin’s Ashes art installation at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in January 2023 propelled her into a new criminal case and put on Russia’s most wanted criminal list. In the summer of 2024 her debut museum exhibition RAGE opened at OK Linz, Linz, Austria, and the eponymous performance piece performed at the Neue Nationalgalerie.

Tolokonnikova's work is in the collections of The Brooklyn Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, Museum of Art and Design, American Folk Art Museum, and Taschen, among others.

Nadya Tolokonnikova IG