The Photographs
With her body and soul connected to landscape, on her travels the artist has considered the geographic specificities in space and time. She has experienced and documented all sorts of geomorphologic forms that she wishes to share with her audience though a selection of photographs.
From the craggy forms in East Asia to the granite relief in West Africa; from a semi-active volcano in Indonesia to a coastline reef of consolidated lava in the island countries of Africa; from caves and chasms to spiked peaks throughout the unique Patagonia. Glaciers and glacial lakes, as well as swamps and lagoons at the bottom of the Argentinean Pampas. Snowy mountains around the Tibetan Plateau and endless deserts and steppes in the Mongolian-Manchurian grassland. All shades of the colour of water throughout the Yellow, Red, Black, Persian, Aegean, Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas. From the Caspian Sea to the Strait of Magellan and then back to the Gulf of Guinea in the blue Atlantic. From oceanic horizons and equatorial jungles to the ultra-modern, hypermodernized metropolises in China, Southeast Asia, as well as in the fast-developing civilizations of the Middle East.
The photographs have not been produced as professional photographic material, but as documents, without any professional equipment. Among the photographed motifs there are landscapes, environmental subject matters, rock-climbing competition, mountaineering and alpinist endeavours, as well as portraits and everyday rural and urban scenes.
The Sketches
Sketches are the artist’s travelogue. As a means of momentary emotional discharge, the sketches represent testimonies of various situations, experiences and circumstances. They capture the artist’s surroundings, as well as intimate moments through everyday scenes.
The sketch could adapt to the surface: it could be made in sand, snow, on a stone, a piece of paper or a napkin. On occasion it is made for practical purposes, as a map to a certain destination, a flag once the goal is reached or as a message signalling trouble. The sketch is a swift, but effective form of artistic expression. The sketch as artistic journal cannot completely replace the written word, but may complement it well in order to capture the moment completely.
From the everyday two-dimensional notes the show offers a selection of sketches, watercolours and writings that mellifluously evidence an unforgettable travelling research.
SÃO TOMÉ 2017
A visual mockery of the hypermodern, excessively consumerist habits of younger generations, which are slowly beginning to appear even in undeveloped African countries. Excessive consumption of food, packaging, fashion trends, or marketing campaigns lead to the increase of global waste. The message of the pieces is summarized in slogans such as: ‘Waste love, not food,’ or ‘Waste time, not food.’
The paintings represent morbidly obese people wasting food while others somewhere else in the world are still starving. The paintings also capture instances of political influence on the people of this developing African country who are easily fooled with cheap political/promotional materials.
São Tomé 2017 also refers to the positive changes awaiting São Tomé by developing the country’s tourism. Several paintings offer a vision of progressive construction, foreign investments, educational programmes, international sports and cultural events that would contribute to developing the educational level of the population, as well as help increase the gross domestic product of the country.
SÃO TOMÉ SMILES
São Tomé Smiles is a solo artistic project consisting of 15 canvases and 24 watercolours.
The Smiles in fact represent various emotional states of the population and of all life in São Tomé. In this developing country with a high level of corruption, the locals encounter all sorts of socioeconomic problems on a daily basis. In the end they always handle their difficulties in a bohemian fashion: with song and dance, and smiling faces.
EMOTIONAL DUST
Emotional Dust is an artistic performance and a series of canvases produced under unusually inspiring and primitive circumstances: 20 days living in a cave, with over 300 hours spent inside the cave.
The original exhibition was held in the village of Tuanjishan in Kunming (Yunnan Province, PR China).
‘Emotions in a Field’, acrylic on canvas, 50x130cm.
THE FAÇADES OF YUNNAN
The Façades of Yunnan or The Urban Faces of Yunnan is an installation presenting details of authentic architectures, a mixture of cultures and everyday scenes from the life in the Chinese Yunnan Province, as documented by the artist Ilina Arsova.
The installation consists of 68 Chinese lanterns, handmade and signed by the artist. Each piece is unique and contains a continuing flow of the distinctive details on Yunnan façades.
SEA Impressions
During her nine-month-long stay in Malaysia and Southeast Asia between 2008 and 2009, Arsova took part in several artistic events and she also held a presentation on SmART Pollution as part of the second International Art Expo Malaysia.
On these canvases the artist has depicted segments of everyday life in various countries of Southeast Asia.
ALL YOU CAN GET
The stay in Argentina took the artist to the highest point on the Western Hemisphere, Aconcagua, which, with its 6962m is the highest summit on the Andes. Mountains are a continuous source of information for Ilina and they have slowly become an indelible part of her art.
MACEDONIA
In the period between 2008 and 2011 Arsova has taken part in group exhibition and artists’ colonies throughout Macedonia, including: the Winter Salon of the Artists’ Association of Macedonia; other thematic and annual exhibitions of the Association; Tiho Kondev’s international artists’ caravan; the artists’ colony in Kavadarci in 2010, and so forth.
She has continued to research into the possibilities of transforming everyday expendable materials into works with visually aesthetic dimensions. A series of installations related to the current Retromenada is to follow.
MACEDONIA
In the period between 2008 and 2011 Arsova has taken part in group exhibition and artists’ colonies throughout Macedonia, including: the Winter Salon of the Artists’ Association of Macedonia; other thematic and annual exhibitions of the Association; Tiho Kondev’s international artists’ caravan; the artists’ colony in Kavadarci in 2010, and so forth.
She has continued to research into the possibilities of transforming everyday expendable materials into works with visually aesthetic dimensions. A series of installations related to the current Retromenada is to follow.
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