While I'm parallel trying to figure out in the "Research" course how to focus on what I'm interested in, I'm decided on the next:
1. I will rework some old works. They are unclaimed and damaged.
There was no plan for recycling. I was just frustrated that every viewer asked how fragile my work was. Of course, if you think from the point of view of an art collector - how will he buy such a work if it can be easily damaged? How do people buy glass vases? And in general, is it here a souvenir shop or many years of work on the concept/idea and months of work on the physical art object itself? In General, I was upset and therefore it all started with destruction.
Then I tried to find a solution how to strengthen the sides and support my idea with recycled materials.
During the analysis for the "Research" course, I realised that, firstly, working with "what is" in my studio stems from my childhood (as a child I collected old sticks, scraps of metal, etc. and built for my room), secondly, working with such atypical material is a challenge for the viewer. This is a provocation that stimulates the viewer to analyse and expand the boundaries of perception. At the same time, it is important for me not to push viewers away, many of my friends say - "fu, again they brought to the museum rubbish, and we should look at it!" or "taped a banana to the wall and should this inspire us ?!"
I want to find a balance between, no!, better, I want to find a combination in which it is objectively that these are building materials and they look like a high level of beauty. Such a contradiction conveys the essence of a person - on the one hand, he loves his child and buys ice cream for him with his last money, and at the same moment, he supports war and murder. It's like Dostoevsky, only not in the language of literature, but in a visual language.
All the above works were developed during the month. Now I condense everything to one paragraph.
The search for a balance of elements and solutions is now perceived by me as the most exciting!
As a result, the blue work turned out to be overloaded with ideas and solutions.
The red work at each of the stages was beautiful. I wonder why? Because the exciting red colour was complemented by flaws? Isn't that what I'm looking for?! But I continued to work, I wanted to see where the end was. As a result,... let it stay like this... it seems to me that something is wrong here. I need to live a bit with this work to understand what's wrong.
2. I will continue to make my sculptural compositions.
A long time ago I had an image in relation to the Russian people in my city.
In Moscow, when snow fell, all processes slowed down. On the streets, cars drove slowly and silently, and pedestrians balanced on the bare ice so as not to break their legs. And it is also some kind of general feeling of deafness because when it snows, the sounds soften, and the speeds (of autos, people, and processes) slow down dramatically. There were many accidents on the road, citizens fell and broke their arms and legs. Both those and other disabled people were waiting for help from outside, clinging to the hope not to freeze and not to spend the whole night waiting for a patrol car. So, I see that this process happens not only in Moscow in winter but has been going on for years throughout Russia.
I tried a couple of tests:
After I caught the right feeling, I started moving into creating.
I resolve issues along the way by applying and thinking about ideas.
The result is stuck, immobilized people, trying to cling to something and help themselves get out ... How will the viewer perceive this work? ... Probably it needs to be supplemented with my description for clarification.
3. I want to try integrating third-party elements into my technique.
Once I brought home a cut trunk of a young birch. It lay in my back room and dried out completely in two years. Birch in my culture is used very often in folklore, paintings and books.
A case in the gallery or Painting watching us, 2020, oil, oil pastel on canvas, 100 x 150 x 4 cm.
I copied and interpreted the work of the Russian artist Kuindzhi several times, and now when I held these tree trimmings in my hands, I returned to it again. In addition, during the exhibitions held in the gallery, I thought that the artworks always hang on the wall and hide their other side. But it's so interesting what's there. Therefore, I decided to give the viewer the opportunity to see what is on the other side. And also I'm looking for a way to show that these are newspapers.
I also ordered a frame from a carpenter to immediately remove the issue of "fragility". In this case, it seems to me, the work only gained, not lost.
Young birches, 2023, recycled newspapers, acrylic, water-based fixatives, plaster on canvas, wood, 116 x 166 x 17 cm.
As a result, my work turned from abstract to figurative. Sheets of paper became leaves of trees. But how does this work relate to news and critical thinking?
In my opinion, it is connected, firstly, I reach here the general interest in terms of the "attractiveness" of the work. The viewer will be interested to see and understand what it is made of.
Secondly, when he realizes that these are recycled materials and the materials have no value, this dissonance is what I need. The value here is in my work, bringing all these things together, building an idea. This feeling of discomfort knocks the viewer's thought process out of the normal flow and forces him to compose something new.
4. And in parallel, we are working on a joint project with another artist.
In parallel, with another artist, we were approved for the exhibition space in Stuttgart with our project about the war. Photographer and graphic designer artist Natalya Samsonova https://nataliasamsonova.com is also from Moscow and shares my views on what is happening in Russia. The pain of losing everything we loved so much motivates us to work.
This project is a first experience for us, we do a lot of testing as we go. We tried to combine photos with my technique, but so far we have not come to a result that satisfies both of us.
The idea is to combine figurative photographs with stories of Ukrainians who left their country and my abstract works as a sensual component. Newspapers as a propaganda tool together with Russian TV news audio will counter the living stories. There is no conclusion or our opinion, there are only facts opposed to each other.
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