You Can’t Turn Me into a Predator, 2025

Kateryna Kolesnykova  

In this work appears a woman with her back to the viewer—nude, restrained and tense. Her pose, with her hands behind her back, is not about submission, but about composure and a refusal to play a role imposed by the external gaze. Her body has a complex texture: soft, relief-like patches on her thighs and buttocks emphasize the naturalness of the female form, reminding us of a real, living body that is not meant to be smoothed out or "corrected" to meet чужими standards. This textural quality becomes part of the artistic language—a gesture of truth that restores the woman's bodily sovereignty.
Beside her, a leopard curves its body along her back, as if trying to impose its pattern onto her skin. Here, the leopard symbolizes the imposed image of "wild," instinct-driven femininity. Yet its spots overlay the texture of the woman's body not as a fusion, but as a contrast: decorative wildness versus real physicality.
The animal offers her a role—the woman does not accept it.
She does not mirror the leopard's pose, nor does she yield to its rhythm. Her glance over her shoulder is restrained, attentive, even detached. It is a gaze directed at the stereotype, not from within it. Her body is not an arena for a predatory myth, but a space where her own, un-simplified story unfolds.
The background, filled with moving strokes of golden green, resembles a decorative savanna—an artificially constructed environment in which the woman is invited to "be wild." It appears more like a theatrical set than real nature, further emphasizing the artificiality of expectations placed upon femininity.
This painting is about the collision between the artificial and the natural, about the refusal of an imposed role, and about the strength of quiet truth: the woman does not merge with the leopard because she is not obliged to become an image invented by someone else.

Series Trained Femininity
The painting is shipped rolled (unstretched, without a frame).
The image size is 110×90 cm, while the canvas measures 118×99 cm to allow extra margins on each side for stretching