Anya Charikov-mickleburgh: "Eaters & Eaten" & Akleriah: "Scarsineriah"

"Eaters & Eaten" is the first solo show by Anya Charikov-Mickleburgh.
The work is a psychoanalytical and critical exploration of Desire and the factors driving it from within: longing and obsession, needs and demands, appetite and taste, pleasure and disgust. Anya has extracted eating, a vital human activity, and projected it as a metaphor for all forms of consumption. "My idea highlights how the actual realisation of Desire does not consist of it being fulfilled". Her paintings in oil leave the audience with the assumption of how we as society inhabit the present, how we eat into culture, eat into commodities, eat into ourselves; while the question "what is eating us now?" remains open.

Anya Charikov-Mickleburgh is a London based artist born in Samara, Russia. Since 2005 her work has been exhibited across the UK, including group exhibitions at Central Saint Martin's UAL and London Canal Museum, Valentines Mansion, London College of Communication, the Camden Arts Centre and Curious Duke Gallery. In 2008 she was awarded the Browne Smith Baker Prize at the Ferens Art Gallery. In 2012 she successfully gained BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Central Saint Martin's University of Art & Design London. For the last three years, Anya has worked as an artist's assistant for Hew Locke.

Akleriah perform "Scarsineriah" for Private View
Guests artists Akleriah, a performance art collective founded in 2009 by Anna Kompaniets and Lenka Horakova, explore the notion of "Empty Body": a body without the flesh, a body that consists of materialised emotions, desires and scars.

Inspired by Anya Charikov-Mickleburgh's paintings, Akleriah question the consumption of the body and its contaminations and tragedies. What is actually hidden beneath our outer facade, and when do we become full and our true self materialises? The performative installation can be experienced throughout the 2-hour private view – the "second skin" will then be shed and left at the exhibition space.
The performance will be accompanied by a piano improvisation by Paris-based musician and SACEM member Nikolas Keriven.