Three
Little dress. Pony. Garden.
- All those things that you tripped up while you heated up something, and those who were at your fingertips and which you missed, and all those who escaped control, while you thought that you held all the ends of your grandmother in your hands … All these components of your closest environment, which are primarily rounded up by you, have decided to put on Chinese rice paper, which comes from the farthest parts to preserve the pieces of your everyday elementary entanglement..(Why exactly that paper?)
What features of the paper are embedded in all the roles that you choose, with which you identify, while building your lyrical identity, coloured by vitality? (Little more about paper)Chinese rice paper.
This paper, as a material, a substrate, already has some properties. It’s unusual. Sometimes you do not know what to do with him. Paper is gentle, soft, thin, fragile. But, it’s also amazingly tough. Strong. Everything was seen on it, there is not much repair. And in fact, these errors and these repairs are the treasure. As with all other things in life, it seems to me.
On this paper, every trace of brush responses, every pressure of the pencil and the most gentle, every line, every light or shade on it..every print, and any trace. Everything was seen, everything is present and everything is strong. Drawing on rice paper with ink, black or coloured ink, ink lavee.
Every touch of the feather or brush and paper was gentle. But not fearful. Often appears a drawing by thread and needle – I’m sewing on them – I draw by an end. I adhesive, added other papers, thin and transparent. In my works, the edges of the paper are not cut out, they are either gently torn off or they are in themselves. These uneven sites are part of the work.
More about paper
Although I have been using Chinese paper in my work for a long time and in many ways, this is something special. Chinese paper as a base – in my case, could only “hold on” something like that. Something so strong, but completely banged and clear. Paper as a base is an integral part of these works in every sense. All the fragility, the thinness of the paper itself, its whiteness, and especially the softness of the touch with the paper.
The works are connected with my deepest feeling, ranging from tenderness, warmth, care to honest and direct. Subtle and at the same time strong. In emotional and artistic sense. They were dedicated to my children.
- What are your verbal associations for the meaning of the words, Little dress, Pony, Garden, and how would you describe it?
Little dress = girl. Pony is a plastic toy. Garden – in my head are birds, wood, flowers. Peace. Careless. A small. Nice . Gently. And safe.
And through these objects my need is getting away from realism , into little dresses, who fly, who are hovering … Pony, a plastic toy of my son who turns into a horse that goes through the whole world … A garden in which peace is perfect and safe, …
All that on paper. Chinese. What I get from Germany from my friend. In rolls of 25 meters. It does not sound poetic, but it is. Lively.
- You are intertwining their childhood with yours, you juggle the moments that have passed through the present time, you are changing new lamps for old one, it seems you are remembering, and in fact, you are reviving emotions, reminiscent of long-standing expectations and giving a new life to interrupted joys. For you, what has passed is not finshed?
Everything is intertwined and influenced one another.
When I wash dishes or spead laundry,I think about my work. I take the camera, because I saw something interesting in the sink or in the middle of hanging up, I remember what I miss in the drawing … I am absorbing the life I live in, I search for and find things that attract me, and give them shape.
Everything is turning around, the present and the past, my and their childhood, arrivals and departures … it was mixed painfully and joyfully, everything is there.
- It is enough long continuity of work 2004-2017. What is the turning point, how did you decide to finish this process?
It all began with a yellow little dress.
I got a girl, and my mom gave me a dress that I got as a baby, from grandmother-aunt from Germany. Tenderness, all mixed up, started to leak onto paper.
This little dress, bright yellow colour, woollen with short sleeves, sophisticated weaving, was the initial one for a series of these works.
At the same time, I also worked on a series of works Pony, the favorite plastic toy for my son.
Garden on paper, for my third child, was made a later.
Long time works were uncompleted. In the meantime, I added something to the works and made the new one.
For each of them three.
“Childhood was a garden.
Without end and thread, without borders and plots … “
Tatiana Tolstoy
