Svetlana Petrova has a hobby. I’m not sure if it’s any stranger than most people’s hobbies, but it is pretty odd. She “improves” classic paintings with pictures of her fat ginger cat – Zarathustra. Why not? That’s the internet: 50% winging, 50% cats, 13% miscellaneous.
She spoke to the BBC before her first exhibition and this is how it all began:
“I lost my mother in 2008 and she left me Zarathustra. I got horrible depression after her death and for two years I was unable to do something creative. By chance a friend asked me ‘why don’t you make an art project with your cat because he’s so funny.'”
And history was remade:
“I’ve had cats before and included them in my work, like playing in theatre shows and I’ve made costumes for them. But I thought, ‘What can I do with Zarathustra, because my mother spoilt him and he’s so fat.'”
“Zarathustra likes posing and is a really intelligent cat. He likes to lie on his back and make strange faces like he’s speaking with somebody, so I began to take photos of him and inserted them into paintings.”
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“I liked the result so I sent it to some friends, other artists and galleries. Everyone laughed so much, so I made a website, but then forgot about it because I had another project.”
“After a few months, another friend saw my cat work in my albums and asked why I had it. I told him it was my cat and he said: ‘Your cat is all over the internet!'”
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…and here she is with the hero of the day:
