Rest mass
Katerina Kovaleva
Katerina Kovaleva
May 26 – July 3 2026
The Triangle Gallery is pleased to present "Rest mass", the new solo show by Katerina Kovaleva. The exhibition will feature sculptures in marble, granite and bronze, paintings on canvas and parachute silk, as well as drawings on paper from recent years. This is the artist's second project with the gallery.
Opening reception May, 26 2026 at 7:00 PM. Through July,3 2026.
"Rest mass is the mass of an object in its own frame of reference — its intrinsic energy. In physics and philosophy, rest mass serves as a powerful image of the opposition between the unchanging, fundamental state of an object and its dynamic expression in motion. The concept of the project is built on the juxtaposition of rest and movement, lightness and weight, softness and hardness, the external and the internal. This is achieved primarily through the contrast or 'resistance' of materials — such as marble and parachute silk — and through the illusory perception of the weight of objects, shaped by past experience.
Stability versus chaos. In a metaphorical sense, 'rest mass' is set against external noise. If speed and energy are external circumstances, then rest mass is the fundamental core of a personality or entity that remains unchanged through all of life's accelerations. Without rest mass, an object would have no self, dissolving into pure energy or emptiness. The term is thus used as a symbol of inner resilience — one that persists even when the world around us demands maximum speed and change.
There is always a pull toward equilibrium and balance. Our consciousness tends to compare and weigh events and things, phenomena and objects. To understand heaviness, one must push off from something light — almost weightless, like the wing of a dragonfly or a moth… In contemplating the eternity of stone and the lost wing of a dragonfly, the fleeting nature of its flight, a fundamental sense of balance is concealed. White marble, as an eternal and archetypal material, underscores the aspiration toward a 'white balance' — in that whiteness the energy of white light is concentrated, echoed by the whiteness of the parachute…
Stone is a witness to eternity, absorbing the light of millions of years; stone connects the past to the present and the future. The paradox of stone's nature lies in its ability to set things in motion while remaining the very embodiment of stillness. Time freezes within stone — this is not only a metaphor for eternity, but also a possibility of fixing things in place… Stone is memory, recorded and externalised, as the foundation of our mortal world."
Katerina Kovaleva
Katerina Kovalyova was born in 1966 in Moscow. After completing her studies at a Moscow art school, she went on to study at the Moscow Higher School of Industrial Art (formerly the Stroganov School) and the Moscow Institute of Printing (Moscow Academy of Print). She has worked in the fields of book illustration, graphic design, and interior design. She is the author of several mosaic works in Moscow, New York, and Groningen (the Netherlands). She experiments with various materials, frequently using the collage method in painting and works on paper.
Selected projects:
2017 — Antarctic Biennale. An exhibition of drawings made by Katerina Kovalyova in Antarctica was held in the Drake Passage aboard the research vessel Akademik Vavilov; the works were later shown at the 57th Venice Biennale.
2018 — Major retrospective exhibition "Memory Routes", Moscow Museum of Modern Art.
2021 — "Case History. The Right to Rest", Rosphoto Museum, Saint Petersburg. The project explores the relationship between the history of a country and that of an individual, drawing on archival materials, documents, and artefacts of the past.
2022–2023 — "Waiting Zone", 18th-century Salt Warehouse, Tarusa, and the Moscow Museum of the History of the Gulag.
2024 — Installation "If It Rains. Waiting Zone". Exhibition "Personal Structures" at Palazzo Bembo, Venice, 60th Venice Biennale.
2024 — Limbo. CREA Centre for Contemporary Art, Venice.
2025 — In Limbo. Parque Ruínas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Opening reception May, 26 2026 at 7:00 PM. Through July,3 2026.
"Rest mass is the mass of an object in its own frame of reference — its intrinsic energy. In physics and philosophy, rest mass serves as a powerful image of the opposition between the unchanging, fundamental state of an object and its dynamic expression in motion. The concept of the project is built on the juxtaposition of rest and movement, lightness and weight, softness and hardness, the external and the internal. This is achieved primarily through the contrast or 'resistance' of materials — such as marble and parachute silk — and through the illusory perception of the weight of objects, shaped by past experience.
Stability versus chaos. In a metaphorical sense, 'rest mass' is set against external noise. If speed and energy are external circumstances, then rest mass is the fundamental core of a personality or entity that remains unchanged through all of life's accelerations. Without rest mass, an object would have no self, dissolving into pure energy or emptiness. The term is thus used as a symbol of inner resilience — one that persists even when the world around us demands maximum speed and change.
There is always a pull toward equilibrium and balance. Our consciousness tends to compare and weigh events and things, phenomena and objects. To understand heaviness, one must push off from something light — almost weightless, like the wing of a dragonfly or a moth… In contemplating the eternity of stone and the lost wing of a dragonfly, the fleeting nature of its flight, a fundamental sense of balance is concealed. White marble, as an eternal and archetypal material, underscores the aspiration toward a 'white balance' — in that whiteness the energy of white light is concentrated, echoed by the whiteness of the parachute…
Stone is a witness to eternity, absorbing the light of millions of years; stone connects the past to the present and the future. The paradox of stone's nature lies in its ability to set things in motion while remaining the very embodiment of stillness. Time freezes within stone — this is not only a metaphor for eternity, but also a possibility of fixing things in place… Stone is memory, recorded and externalised, as the foundation of our mortal world."
Katerina Kovaleva
Katerina Kovalyova was born in 1966 in Moscow. After completing her studies at a Moscow art school, she went on to study at the Moscow Higher School of Industrial Art (formerly the Stroganov School) and the Moscow Institute of Printing (Moscow Academy of Print). She has worked in the fields of book illustration, graphic design, and interior design. She is the author of several mosaic works in Moscow, New York, and Groningen (the Netherlands). She experiments with various materials, frequently using the collage method in painting and works on paper.
Selected projects:
2017 — Antarctic Biennale. An exhibition of drawings made by Katerina Kovalyova in Antarctica was held in the Drake Passage aboard the research vessel Akademik Vavilov; the works were later shown at the 57th Venice Biennale.
2018 — Major retrospective exhibition "Memory Routes", Moscow Museum of Modern Art.
2021 — "Case History. The Right to Rest", Rosphoto Museum, Saint Petersburg. The project explores the relationship between the history of a country and that of an individual, drawing on archival materials, documents, and artefacts of the past.
2022–2023 — "Waiting Zone", 18th-century Salt Warehouse, Tarusa, and the Moscow Museum of the History of the Gulag.
2024 — Installation "If It Rains. Waiting Zone". Exhibition "Personal Structures" at Palazzo Bembo, Venice, 60th Venice Biennale.
2024 — Limbo. CREA Centre for Contemporary Art, Venice.
2025 — In Limbo. Parque Ruínas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.