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Victoria Kovalenchikova
"I realize now that the reality of things is not something you convey to people but something you make. It is this that gives birth to meaning"
-Haruki Murakami
Painting by it is very nature is a process oriented craft. It requires a contemplative spirit and like writing is primarily a solitary activity. In art history and in contemprary art painting is frequently viewed as a medium of non-verbal story telling. Consequently, I often use historical settings as I want to give the viewer a definite sense of place. As a result the metropolis becomes my focal point from which stories evolve and develop outward. Every city holds millions of residual narratives that follow the ebb and flow of the people which live in them. Although my paintings are autobiographical in nature I try to retain the position that personal and universal mythologies reflect one another.
Earlier on in my practice I painted in an alla prima fashion but soon moved from that approach to the use of glazes. This seems to me to be more fitting with the content of my work. I now approach painting as an incremental process and as a result the surface of my works are comprised of layers which form a skin. Some parts are smooth and other parts are textured. This creates a combined visual effect which is more in tune with what stories are all about.
During my travels I realized that every city has a distinct soul which manifests itself through it is structures. They are diaries of human activity. My works try to bridge the gap between the city as an entity and it is inhabitants. The angular use of perspective in my compositions reiterate the passage of time and emotional awareness. Although the viewer is gazing into a scene, I want to convey the feeling that they are autonomous from it. We are in some way all voyeurs beholding the lives of others and sometimes even our own. My particular use of closed colors is way of reminding the onlooker that humanity is comprised of overlooked moments. Life is not a series of highlighted instances but instead a conglomeration of unnoticed movement.
In general I think painting is what film has always tried to capture with the use of slow motion. By this I mean paintings are not frozen images taken from real time. Rather, they are evolving in time in a circular sense. I tend to strive for an extended moment which is formed from gathered circumstances and collective memory. Painting for me is an attempt to deal with life as a whole, whilst not forgetting the specifics.
I have always felt that art should tell us something about ourselves. Although we have an inadequate perspective there is an undecipherable unity in everything. As individuals we may feel and appear as fragments. This I feel is because we are unable to percieve a person, a place, or our life, as a movement within a larger movement. Ultimately, we are as concentric circles orbiting others which comprise the narrative of history.
Victoria Kovalenchickova
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