Polina Shcherbyna

Polina Shcherbyna

Polina Shcherbyna lives and works in Leipzig and Berlin, DE. Born in Kyiv, UA (1993). The artist works with the expansion of the concept and perception of painting, which she positions as an object with reflection on icon and temple esthetic. Polina interprets her artworks as a double view of the world of the fall of the Anthropocene idea.

That is why she creates different kinds of installations with double-sided artworks on wood in the technique of pyrography and carving, which sometimes include poetry sound as an additional element of the spatial-auditory perception of the work.

On the one hand, Polinaʼs works, are filled with horror and powerlessness before the dark side of humanity, but at the same time, they are filled with faith in the future. A main material for the artist is an unprimed linen fabric glued with layers of gelatin, which fixes crumpled curves and torn edges of the fabric, and captures time in the form of bends and folds on the canvas. The prototype of this technical method visually is the shroud. The artist creates an image with partial loss of information, this technical feature reminds us of the illusory nature of time and memory is the imprint that history leaves behind.

Throughout the entire artistic practice, her works are related to corporeality and the use of antianatomy techniques.

This research is related to the physical and spiritual in human, later in nature and in image of a tree. In the reflections on the topic of loss and hope for healing in Polina's works of the last years, there are built connections with deep ecology, dark vitality, the body of the war, the sacralization of death, humanity's suffering, and sacrifice in the modern world through the prism of the circle of history and Christianity.

Artwork Details

    • Location
    • Ukraine
    • Dimensions
    • 150cm x 300cm
    • Years
    • 2022
    • Framing
    • No framed

Description

"The unfolding events resemble a terrible surrealistic dream that is impossible to comprehend. The state of waiting gives hope to wake up soon from this horror and understand that all this did not exist. But no, the war entered everyone's life. It follows us everywhere, it is present in everything that surrounds us. The war is next to us when we look at the window, it is still with us when we have a dinner, when we go to bed.

The shape of the curtain is an attribute of home comfort in a peaceful life. This is what guards the intimacy of our lives, preserving behind a fabric curtain what is domestic and personal.

I think about it as a separation between man and war, as a division between our personal lives and the terrible reality of war that changes everything around. I peer into the curtain and think about the time. Time in process of waiting started to flow differently, it burns in a whirlwind of terrible news. In anticipation of victory, hours, days, months, turn into a homogeneous mass, it seems that it is one very long day and only the number of terrible crimes of the occupier reminds how long this day lasts.

"The Battallia of Modernity" is a fixation of a battle that is difficult to imagine literally, it is a belief in the light which will definitely defeat the darkness."

Polina Shcherbyna

Battallia of Modernity

2022, Painting, Unprimed canvas, Acrylic , Contemporary

Digitized using

in ultra-high resolution Digital Original artwork from original painting, authenticity and quality was verified by the gallery curators & artist.

  • Resolution:
    400 MPX (23296 x 17472 px)
  • Color depth:

    16 bit 281 Trillion Colors

  • Original file size:

    1761 MB DNG File

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