tatyanaostapenko

[tatyanaostapenko]

PRINTS ARE HERE: LADIES UP MURAL CONCEPT DESIGN PRINTS ARE SHIPPING OUT SOON

So many firsts lately. First public art project.

First time painting larger than life size figures.

First fundraising campaign.

First art prints! I just got home from the printer’s and decided to make a quick video so you can share in my excitement of seeing these for the first time.

After trying a few local printers, getting multiple proofs and doing color correction, the prints are finally ready. I ended up working with a local family owned eco-friendly company called Symbiosis printing. They are a bit of a hidden jem. I felt like I got to join a cool insider circle, since they don't have much web presence, but all the local artists sing their praises and highly recommend this company.  The store owner Jeff was gracious and patient. He answered my many (silly) newbie questions and found the perfect high quality paper that worked great for our Babushkas. 

 The original painting has a lot of visible brush marks and the canvas weave is visible, so using a smooth paper worked so much better than the more common textured fine art papers that have a surface that distorted the already textured image.

I am very happy with the finished prints and can't wait to hand sign and number all of them tonight and ship them to you before the end of the week.

Thank you so much for supporting public art in Portland as well as this independent artist!

  💗💗💗

[tatyanaostapenko]

ARTIST STUDIO PRACTICE ON LOCKDOWN: INTERVIEWS, DISCUSSIONS AND MUSINGS

The past month has been incredibly busy, rich in interactions and professional opportunities.

I know, it sounds strange because we are on lockdown and can’t go anywhere. But this is precisely the reason.

Suddenly the whole world is much more on my wavelength and a lot of the art world interaction and networking has moved online. While I love seeing artwork in real life, I sincerely dislike the party scene atmosphere of gallery openings and many art events. I hate mingling and making small talk. I like talking about things of substance and mutual interest. Art nerd talk.

And the format of an online studio visit, live video interview and email exchanges suits my nerdy, vehemently introverted self just fine. And now that everyone else is on board with me, I am thoroughly in my element. Yay!

And since a lot of recent questions and discussions come up regularly in my communication with both collectors and arts professionals, I decided to put some of them together in one place here.

Q: Super interested in your palette. Does it reflect a time period?

A: it does. I always think back to the 90s, the post Berlin Wall Ukraine: lots of mud, dust and concrete with the occasional bright spot of a coveted imported plastic bag or a fake designer sweatshirt. All manner of brown grays with a sudden scream of neon green or extra saturated fuchsia.

This is a great question. It made me realize that this is precisely where my palette comes from. And I always thought it came from 19th century realism with a touch of Die Brücke…

Q: have you ever thought to use objects to paint on that are not canvas/board, or picked other shapes besides squares and rectangles?

A: I have considered it. While I have seen outstanding examples of merging of painting and sculpture, I am not compelled to create those myself. At least not right now while I am still interested in figurative representational painting.

I thoroughly enjoy the suspension of disbelief that the idea of a painting provides within the context of the Western art tradition. Akin to a theater stage once the actors enter it, transcends its nature and becomes an opening to a different world, providing a platform for imagination to unfold. I want to make my supports as non-self aware as they can be, as to make them all but invisible and simply provide the stage for the magic within.

Q: Have you ever felt that there is something that needs to be said? Or some hidden/past that can be revived?

A: There is an element of reluctantly indulged nostalgia in my work. I am repeatedly drawn to images taken around the time I was a child. I think a lot of my interest in the late Soviet and post-Soviet time is purely selfish and self focused. I want to re-live, re-experience my childhood. I want to understand the larger time and epoch when it happened. But ultimately it’s my memory and longing for a child-like perception of the world that dictates my reference choices.

Q: I think Americans react to something in your work, but obviously won’t understand the references. What do you think others are getting from your work and does it matter?

A: I am deeply invested in using reference images that are important, relevant and meaningful to me. I am certain they don’t communicate directly with an American audience, especially if my viewers aren’t too familiar with Soviet/Post-Soviet environs.

I don’t expect to have a universal appeal or deliver some manner of pan-cultural message, yet perhaps the limited palette, my muted color choices, and interactions between the figures and the environment can convey a certain sense of unease, unfinished transition, unsettling change and displacement.

Q: what does the material mean to you? How does this relate to your content?

A: The material reins supreme for me. I am all about paint, the act of painting. The malleability, the unpredictability as well as ability to describe form exactly, to represent the light and create veritable shadows… I am in love with paint!

I’ve always wanted to paint. My content is just something that holds my attention well and long enough to indulge in the luxury of smearing paint around.

Q: Have you considered creating a series, a story that pulls the viewer in?

A:  All my recent shows are strongly unified by content. Thematically and visually they are a series. My work was included in a group show at the Ford Gallery a few months ago. The show title was Around the Narrative Lens. The curatorial idea was to show artists whose work is often perceived to have strong narrative and to engage in a dialog about such perception and artists intention. I feel like all my paintings are a part of one large series. A disjunctive, non linear narrative, for certain. More Faulkner than Steven King. 

Q: can a painting capture or take further the idea of preservation that treats paint not as a preservative but as blocks of raw intensities. (raw = the light of a moment or a gust of wind on a particular day)

A: Oh, do I dearly wish for raw intensity. I certainly do! I want the abandon of gesture, yet at the same time I absolutely have to improve my representational skills. Perhaps I’ve been focusing on accuracy too much and it’s time to indulge in some abandon.

Sargent and de Kooning on the same surface… Not too high of a goal for after seven years of painting, right?

Q: When piecing together a picture plane with some recognizable elements and blurred edges/spaces, I wonder what (content-wise) ends up on the surface? Similarly, what is cut out and/or reassembled?

A: Sometimes there are new elements that emerge, say, glowing under-painting suggesting smoldering fire, etc, but usually once I’ve decided loosely on the composition, the content takes on the guiding, yet secondary role and the painting becomes an exercise in paint handling and formal decision-making.

Q: is the abstraction and ambiguity you seem after in your work related to the politics tied to your process, or do they want reconciliation?

A: I feel like abstraction and ambiguity has more chances of transcending the very specific time and place and have more universal psychological impact. I also don’t want to come across as preachy and insisting on a particular solution. I am more concerned with intimate individual experience and how it’s affected by the larger political forces.

[tatyanaostapenko]

ARTIST WRITING GROUP

What: artist writing group

Where: in the comfort of your own home

How: using google hangouts

When: once a week

Why: structure, community and accountability

Writing is one of the hardest things for me. 

Some of you might be curious why a painter needs to write? Doesn’t she have brushes and delicious gooey paints to smear around to her heart’s content?

But a contemporary artist absolutely has to write. Even if just to clarify ideas, to check in internally, but mainly to communicate with peers, collectors and institutions.

I have a writer’s block the size of a city block. And I promise, I’ve been trying. But I do best under pressure. Peer pressure that is. The positive kind.

I thrive in an open studio environment. Back in the olden days, before the current homebound era, I always had my artist friends to joining me in the studio to work side by side. This is different from a critique group where artists gather to give feedback on specific pieces, either finished or works in progress. It’s also nothing like a studio visit where an artist presents their current work and speaks about studio practice.

These are wonderful things to do, they help us get clarity and offer valuable feedback, but I need another type of support: the immediate kind that is available when another painter is mixing her palette right next to mine.

When we see each other’s work in its intimate immediacy, we can offer and receive input right there and then. Now, I know this can sound terrifying and vulnerable to some, so don’t try it with mean spirited competitive types! For me, many drawing mistakes were fixed because I had another set of fresh and unbiased eyes to spot them. Camaraderie, mutual support, listening and being heard in the midst of the creative process, well, that’s what I want in my studio environment.

And considering how well this has worked for painting, why not try it for something immensely more challenging, for writing? 

Initially the idea was a weekly or bi-weekly meeting at the Erickson Gallery downtown Portland for a small group of artists that meets to dedicate time writing: grant writing, completing those applications that we usually leave until last minute, blog writing, or even just uninterrupted and supported time to reflect on our current practice.

I imagined a brief check in, about a minute or two, to share with others what we are going to work on. Then 45 min to an hour to write. Time blocking isn’t just for corporate types! We can use the tools to help our less structured artistic work. And for those who would like to share and get feedback from the group, we can do quick read throughs and edits. I am open to suggestions.

Let’s harness the supportive energy of a group that gathers for the same purpose. Sometimes our will and focus wavers. This is a way to anchor attention and use the positive psych of peer pressure to our advantage.

Please let me know if you are interested in joining me in this adventure. Let me know what days and times work for you and lets get this going!

[tatyanaostapenko]

Neighborhood

oil on canvas

34x42 inches

2015

Painting ships rolled in an over-sized tube mailer.

[tatyanaostapenko]

[tatyanaostapenko]

[tatyanaostapenko]

[tatyanaostapenko]

Михаил Самуэлевич Паниковский: — Бендер, — захрипел он вдруг, — вы знаете, как я вас уважаю, но вы ничего не понимаете! — Вы не знаете, что такое гусь! Ах, как я люблю эту птицу! — Это дивная жирная птица, честное, благородное слово. — Гусь! Бендер! Крылышко! Шейка! Ножка! Вы знаете, Бендер, как я ловлю гуся? — Я убиваю его, как тореадор, — одним ударом. Это опера, когда я иду на гуся! «Кармен»!..

[tatyanaostapenko]

Работаю промышленным альпинистом. Кoты всегда рады моему появлению.

Работаю промышленным альпинистом. Кoты всегда рады моему появлению.

[tatyanaostapenko]

I just added a new piece of art to Saatchi Art! Assembly

[tatyanaostapenko]

I just added a new piece of art to Saatchi Art! Upper Bunk

[tatyanaostapenko]

A little bit about country life

[tatyanaostapenko]

I grew up a few blocks from this spot. That building is still an empty shell 25 years later.

From the MoMA website:

Set against the bleak backdrop of the industrial city of Kharkov, Mikhailov’s life-size color photographs document the oppression, devastating poverty, and everyday reality of a disenfranchised community living on the margins of Russia’s new economic regime. Mikhailov recalls of his experience returning to Kharkov some years after the collapse of communism, “Devastation had stopped. The city had acquired an almost modern European centre. Much had been restored. Life became more beautiful and active, outwardly (with a lot of foreign advertisements)—simply a shiny wrapper. But I was shocked by the big number of homeless (before they had not been there). The rich and the homeless—the new classes of a new society—this was, as we had been taught, one of the features of capitalism.” 

[tatyanaostapenko]

Grocery shopping in Russia

[tatyanaostapenko]

 6 soviet stamps (1977)

[tatyanaostapenko]

REBLOG IF NAZIS OFFEND YOU MORE THAN NIPPLES.