My focus was on developing familiarity and understanding of the material qualities and spatial relationships that exist on the altar.
I started by analyzing objects, their combinations and context. I took a lot of photos. Changed the light - daylight, candlelight, UV and normal room lighting.
My objects are very different. "Pure materials" - a piece of wood, a nail, a rope are not endowed with a big context, while a Matryoshka, an icon, Chinese coins, nail polish already carry certain information. Even my sculptural sketch is something devoid of context. This piece tells only about the material itself and its properties. Therefore, I divided these elements into groups.
A telephone, as an element of high technology, can be combined with a radically primitive piece of wood, but I did not develop this idea because I moved to its inner qualities - video, online translation and connection to the Internet.
I wanted to contrast statics and dynamics. Old and new. Faith, purity and ... digitality. It seems to me that there is a very subtle connection between the icon and the telephone. Both are flat, and both have huge context. Is it some kind of untrue?! Like the fact that an icon is just a photo of a person on cardboard or a piece of wood. And a smartphone where all information that is represented there is likely a fake.
Double-space. You also see this picture on the screen. Where then the miracle? In my room, in virtual space, or on your computer?
After such intense work in the digital space, I wanted simplicity.
So I reformed the "pure" materials. My focus was on the rhythm, the beauty of straight and intricated lines, the material itself.
I do not want to copy Barlow's work, but I understand that I need to represent an understanding of perspective, rhythm, negative and positive space, light and shadow and the choice of materials for the drawing.
And then I fell into the past. Tenderness of shadow, respect for straight lines, play and personification of a curved line, deep and sophisticated colour.
There are no features of the spatial relationship. But such a beauty of rhythm through drawing (painting), was shown before me and in much better ways. So I'm moving to innovation.
When changing the light, I focused on the white draft sculpture.
White on white. Subtle work of light and shadow. I can make a graphic drawing where the negative space will become part of the sculpture.
Sketch in PhotoShop.
But I was interested in the fact that a white sheet of paper with ultraviolet light, as it were, becomes spatial. And I knew from previous experience that my white paint does not glow in this light. Here the paint became a material, it is flat, it is a positive space.
In this case, a spatial pattern was obtained only due to the UV light.
I love this experience. Because, usually artists use a UV lamp only for special paints, and in this experiment, the paper works as it is.
Further is more.
What are Matryoshkas in terms of condition, material?
I do not know why but for me, it is a cheap imitation of the original. It is a minimal version of the Matryoshka painting for tourists. Normally, the painting on the dolls is unique, detailed and extremely reach. I bought it at the airport in Moscow and paid much more than usual. You pay a lot for "visibility", "similarity", but you get not quite that.
Therefore, nothing but a college was better for the role of a duplicate. I found something similar on the Internet and started experimenting.
The logic of the "birth" of a new Matryoshka doll is series - from the largest to the smallest. It is a row, a line, a wavy line, the rhythm between them. Since the icon was another representation of a woman, I combined these elements.
At first, I planned to project the icon onto a white sheet of paper. So a digital projection of the holy face would convey that fleetingness, airiness and mysticism.
But unexpectedly for myself, I began to change the eyes and lips of the Matryoshkas.
Cuts from magazines. I have not done this with faces before. There was a trial with digital, but not with the paper cuts.
It took me over. Of course, this is a criticism of Russian girls who seek to find rich husbands and therefore overdo it "a little" with their "beauty". But what faces! What facial expressions!
At that moment, I realized that I could not morally (!) put the image of a saint with these faces. And then I realized the fact that this is probably the difference between the Russian culture and others. There is something high that I cannot go over. I mean, I can, but respect and purity to the image of a saint who knows what I am doing. He (Saint) can punish, but I'm not afraid of this. I morally do not want to neglect the honour of this image. Therefore, the maximum that I could use was impersonal hands.
The modern gesture has been my focus for a while for exploration. I analyzed our movements when using the smartphone.
And at that moment, I noticed that in general, we are gesticulating differently now than, for example, ten years ago. This is how hands and a mirror appeared in my sketch, where I decided to bring the viewer himself.
Background. I didn't want to overload the resulting "Russian pop art" sketch. I settled on the choice of burlap. By the nature of the material, it suits wooden Matryoshka dolls and at the same time brings simplicity and primitiveness in contrast to glamorous girls.
As a result, my focus is on materiality, using modern technology, through the lens of nationality. It seems to be a good help in my search for self-identification.
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