ABOUT
RIMMA was born in 1986 in Yakutsk, in the Russian Far East (former Yakut ASSR), and was raised under the strong influence of Tatar culture. She studied linguistics at the University of Nizhny Novgorod before continuing her education at Studio Berçot fashion school in Paris. After over a decade of working in the fashion industry, she began developing her practice as a multidisciplinary artist in 2021.
Her work draws inspiration from the majestic nature of the Far North and the Tatar culture that shaped her early life. Childhood memories — from summers in a Tatar village to family stories, tales, and legends passed down by her grandparents — form the core of her creative world. Through her practice, she is committed to preserving and reinterpreting her cultural heritage while exploring contemporary narratives of identity.
In her creative process, RIMMA delves into personal and ancestral memory, translating experiences both tender and traumatic with emotional honesty. Her artistic language spans multiple media: painting, drawing, collage, installation, and photography. Each chosen to best express the nuances of her inner and cultural landscape.
Her works are part of private collections across France, Germany, Switzerland, the United States, and Russia.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I paint from places that don’t fully exist — half-remembered gardens, village houses, stories I heard as a child, and images that never fully belonged to me. My work is a conversation with memory: personal, cultural, and collective.
I often work with flowers, female figures, textiles, and animal forms — particularly the fox, which recurs as a silent witness. These symbols are not decorative, but containers of meaning: traces of history, distortion, and resilience.
In series like PVTS, I focus on the poppy — a flower both tender and forbidden, linked to my childhood in Tatar villages and Soviet anxieties about opium. In I Paint Notself, I embody canonical women from art history — reclaiming them through self-portraiture and a contemporary feminist lens. In Le Rénable, the surface itself becomes the subject: fragile, burnt, remembering.
My process is tactile and symbolic. I build quiet resistance into form, absence into color. I don’t recreate the past — I listen to what’s left of it.
My work does not seek to recreate the past, but to remain in conversation with what lingers — through form, surface, silence, and presence.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2025 — PVTS, Kunst- und Kulturscheune Katzow, Germany
2023 — An Army of One, Espace Braque, Paris
2023 — Flower. Recollection, solo exhibition, private salon, Paris
ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT
2025 – Residency at La Lune Bleue, Burgundy, France (Feb)
2024 – Self-directed research and project development (Paris)
2023 – Studio-based independent practice and mentorship
TEXTS & PUBLICATIONS
2025 – Featured artist, PUMA Paris catalogue: ‘Parisian Artist Series’
2024 – Catalogue excerpt, ‘Le Rénable’, artist-published (PDF)
2023 – Exhibition text by Karina Karaeva, “An Army of One”, Paris
COLLECTIONS
Private collections in France, Germany, Switzerland, the United States, and Russia.
EDUCATION
Studio Berçot, Paris — Fashion Design, diploma (2019)
Linguistic University of Nizhny Novgorod — Philology, history of arts (2008)
PREVIOUS PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
2010–2021 — Fashion industry: styling, art direction, visual storytelling
Collaborations with LVMH Group
Editorial work for magazines and independent brands
Visual scenography for contemporary theater (Paris)