Marina Leonteva

All is Alive 2023

This work was created in response to the resistance to full-scale war in Ukraine, with the hope for peace as soon as possible. Feeling deeply wounded, extremely sensitive, and exhausted, I wanted to remind myself and others: don't give up—preserve and spread the value of peace; after any war, reconciliation will eventually come. 


An old veil and a handmade napkin, found in a second-hand shop in Tbilisi, became symbols of something that had been experienced and discarded. Yarn and thread serve as a metaphor for the omnipresence of life.

The title refers to “All Flesh is Grass” phrase, which appears in several sources: the experimental Siberian music project of the same name with a sense of impending disaster; Clifford Simak's book of the same name, where alien purple flowers surround the city, preventing people from passing through them; and the biblical idea of the transience of human manifestations.

Mushroom Erotic Calendar, January 2025

I am still researching colors. Painting with pastels is a particular kind of pleasure — dry, tactile, intimate.

In this work, I was trying to feel the border between life and death — not as an idea, but as a texture. Dead plants, fungi, fallen leaves — they carry a strange beauty. Decay can be meaningful too.

I imagined what might attract a mushroom. What color means to a bee. How it feels to perceive like something silent and rooted. That’s where I escape — into their slow, wordless world.

Resistance - Can my spines be colourful and soft?, 2025

I grew up in a brutal environment — cold, criminal, careless. I had to grow spines early. Defense was survival. I invented thousands of ways to be untouchable.

And yet, inside, I carried something else. A stubborn sense of hope. A quiet connection with nature. A belief — almost superstitious — in my luck. My bubble was fragile, but colourful.

I still don't understand how living beings can be so vulnerable and so enduring at the same time. It feels like a mystery, or a miracle. I admire this resistance — not the loud kind, but the one that allows fragility to exist.

I want to believe we don’t always have to protect ourselves. That safety can grow in softness. That maybe my spines can change — not disappear, but bloom.

Dreamy, 2024

Sometimes hope is the only thing that keeps us moving. As humans, we cling to dreams — irrational, blurry, tender. We grasp at every elusive reason to stay, to keep moving forward, to affirm the value of all we’ve done. It’s an astonishing trait — essential, and perhaps imprinted deep within us. Maybe it’s our way of surviving.

homeland, 2024

A body upside down — like The Hanged Man in tarot. Ashes below, then becalming icy air. I imagined this body as a fragile home. A place I can still carry with me.

I’ve lost my home — more than once. Born in the last days of the USSR, raised in a series of big cold cities full of silence and threat. Russia never felt like a motherland, more like a danger zone. Georgia gave me hope, gave me warmth. For a while it felt real — maybe too real. But we were told it’s over. Last entry. No more coming back.

all is alive, exhibition in Tbilisi