Freedom, flow, and the magic of being alive.
Prefer to watch? The full video is right here.
There’s a moment in our conversation with Ekaterina Dimieva – EK for short – where she pauses, smiles slightly, and says:
“It’s a very complex thing to be free.”
It sounds almost offhand. But it’s not. For EK, freedom is the central project of her practice – harder to achieve than any single painting, and more important than any of them too.
EK was born in Bulgaria, grew up as a solo child rich in imagination and LPs and hours spent alone, and arrived in New Zealand nearly 25 years ago. She’s stayed. “It is home now,” she says simply. “I’m very lucky to call this home.”
Her paintings carry that duality – the warm reds and greens of Eastern European folk tradition, and the particular luminosity of New Zealand colour and light. She made green paintings for years, she tells us, pulled along by the landscape around her. The warmer palette – reds, oranges, yellows – has always been there underneath. “I gravitate towards reds, yellows and oranges,” she says. “Red is the colour of life, blood, passion.”
Detail of EK’s Collection to view now.
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What drives the work isn’t subject matter so much as sensation.
EK is drawn to energies, intensities, forces – the quality of aliveness itself. She came across the philosophical concept of becoming – the idea, from Deleuze and Guattari, that nothing is fixed, everything is constantly in motion and transformation – and found in it a description of what she was already trying to do.
“Nothing is static,” she says. “Art is changing, morphing and developing. This is the essence of life. This is the magic for me – I’m trying to capture that.”
Her process reflects that thinking. Getting into the studio can take time – sometimes hours of arrival before anything begins. When a painting isn’t working, she walks away: goes to the movies, reads, writes, looks at other artists’ work. “It’s working with it rather than forcing it,” she says. “You just have to wait for the right time.”
When the flow does arrive, she describes something close to surrender. “You’re not controlling it – you’re letting the paint guide you. That’s the best part.”
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It keeps me alive!
EK also works as an art therapist, and it’s given her a particular conviction about what art does in the world beyond the studio. “You learn how to see and appreciate,” she says. “Your mental health really improves when you make art. You can look after yourself through art, or even just looking at art.”
For all its philosophical depth, there’s something very direct about EK’s relationship to her practice. When we asked why she does what she does, she didn’t hesitate.
“It keeps me alive – essence and fullness.”
We think that comes through in the work.
Watch the full video
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‘Savannah’ by Ekaterina Dimieva
View EK’s work
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If you’d like to see EK’s work in person, we’d love to have you.
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