Medvedeva Katya (Ekaterina) I. was born in the village of Golubino, the Belgorod region. When she was 10, she became an orphan and was sent to an orphanage in the town of Shusha (Azerbaijan). She changed many occupations. Since 1980, she has been living in Moscow and deals with painting and drawing. Since 1988, her numerous exhibitions have been held in Moscow and abroad. The individual talent of the artist, her human eccentricity is clearly manifested in her witty speech and extravagant outfits, which have always attracted her friends and admirers.
This feature allowed her to easily enter the world of Moscow’s bohemia, as soon as she began to manifest herself as an artist. Her early works painted in oil on canvas, immediately impressed with their unlimited expression and romantic attitude to art and the role of an artist in the world. In addition, she was clearly distinguished by the way of thinking, her way of expressing the image of her native country Russia, and religious experience expressed in the images of churches and saints - these and other important topics are revealed by the artist with great depth, sincerity and significance. Her interest in art in general determines her favourite stories, the first place among them being occupied by ballet dance. Many of the artist’s pictures are not made on a conventional canvas, but on a specially primed velvet, on a patterned shiny fabric that resembles that used for church vestments. The material of these works distinguishes them from the field of inventive art. The favorite colour of her ballet series is blue. The faces of ballet dancers - angels with huge eyes, puppet lips and frequent expression of frozen amazement are resemble rather clown-like grimaces than the faces of great dancers. The artist seems to be unconsciously revealing the archaic nature of the theater as a spectacle. She perceives artists as sorcerers of a magic action or jesters from folk festivals. In numerous ballet scenes, Medvedeva conveys with amazing accuracy the plasticity of movements of an individual figure of a ballet dancer and a general pattern of the dance. Medvedeva is the master of portraits. Her portraits of friends, historical characters, self-portraits feature similarity, sharpness, and a characteristic technique. Katya Medvedeva paints herself and her vision. Her ballet pictures are stylistically the same as portraits, landscapes of the village of Anemyasovo, and images of old cars. Everywhere, the exact similarity is combined with unrestricted latitude of motion, sometimes even hyperbolic, and decorative patterns. Especially interesting are the works connected with the images of Pushkin and Yesenin, in which the artist reveals her understanding of poetry.
