First

2016, Painting, Oil, Canvas, Author's technique , Contemporary

This is a Digital Original of the artwork, digitized using the process. Each DO is verified, blockchain-secured, and comes with full rights for exclusive digital ownership.

The work "First" (2016) is part of the project "Eliminated archive" (2016-2020).

"While studying at the art academy, I was looking for my own place to concentrate, my own studio. Moving from one place to another, I always took all of my materials and paintings, although every time there were more of them and I needed to organize the space in order to fit them in.

Over time, the studio got cramped and paintings were everywhere. Old oil paintings that remind me of my learning and the stages that I’ve gone through became a pile of memories, rolled onto the shelves and covered with dust. This experience demands transformation. I experiment with my paintings, check their durability, take them off the subframe and pour boiling water on them, finally leaving them rolled in for a night. In the morning, I wash them rubbing one part of the painting against the other. I scrub and destroy the layers of paint until the image is no longer recognizable. Everything that has fallen off is redundant. Everything that is left becomes a part of the new work.

This project in trying to get back to the source. Going back to the previous layers and up to the bare canvas, I leave the pieces of different layers of paint there.

That’s how I erase all the stories, textures and color balances created during various stages of my development as an artist. After I wash the painting, I see previous sketches and traces between the chunks of the paint still left of the surface. These traces symbolize the information that has been lost and can never be recovered. One can only guess what image may have been there. The peeling is a process of partial loss of information, it confuses all the shapes and colors and creates new combinations of spots that form a totally new composition."

Polina Shcherbyna

Digital original details

Format
Digital Original Standard
Resolution
400 MPX
Color depth
48 bit 281 Trillion Colors
Original file size
1677 MB DNG File

Physical original details

Country
Ukraine
Years
2016
- Styles
  - Contemporary
- Medium
Physical canvas
160cm x 150cm
Framing
No framed

Polina Shcherbyna

Polina Shcherbyna is a talented Ukrainian artist who works across various mediums, including drawing, painting, photography, and installation art.

Summary of Polina Shcherbyna

The artist engages with the expanded concept and perception of painting, presenting it as an object that reflects on iconography and the aesthetics of the temple.The artwork of Polina Shcherbyna is interpreted be the artist as a double view of the world of the fall of the Anthropocene idea.

Biography of Polina Shcherbyna

The artist was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1993. She studied in department of monumental painting and temple culture named after Mykola Storozhenko at NAFAA, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree.

Polina Shcherbyna’s paintings have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Her solo shows have been held at Gallery DIM in Warsaw, M17 Contemporary Art Centre in Kyiv, Idealfruhstuck in Paris, and Šopa Gallery in Kosice, among other renowned venues. Moreover, she participated in group shows, such as “Materia metters” at Ukrainskyi Dim in Kyiv (2024), “Traces of timelessness” at Künstlerhaus Sootböern in Hamburg, “BRÜCHE” at HAUS KUNST MITTE in Berlin (2024), and many more.

Currently, the artist lives and works in Leipzig and Berlin.

Polina Shcherbyna’s Famous Works: Exploring the Artist’s Journey

Polina Shcherbyna’s original paintings include “Is the Wound Healing or Growing?” (2023), “ONE LESS TREE IN PARADISE” (2022-2023), “The Winter Landscape Has Changed To — The Landscape Of Emptiness” (2023), and “Battallia of Modernity” (2023), among others.

Additionally, the artist has created numerous firing paintings and drawings on wood, and installations. These include “Branches of Great Tree (Double-Sided Work)” (2022), “The time when stones will be gather” (2023), “Overcoming the Black Spot” (2022), “Against the Darkness” (2022), and many more. Polina Shcherbyna’s paintings for sale are available at auction on the UFDA website.

Polina Shcherbyna’s Art Style

The artist interprets her artworks as a dual perspective on the fall of the Anthropocene concept. This duality is central to her creative process, reflected in her installations featuring double-sided artworks on wood using pyrography and carving techniques. These works often incorporate poetry sound as an additional element of the spatial-auditory perception of the work.

On one side, Polina Shcherbyna’s art evokes horror and powerlessness in the face of humanity's darker aspects. On the other, her works embody faith and hope for the future.

A primary material in her practice is unprimed linen fabric glued with layers of gelatin, which preserves the fabric’s crumpled curves and torn edges. This technique captures the passage of time in the form of bends and folds on the canvas. The prototype of this technical method visually is the shroud. The artist creates images with a partial loss of information, a technique that evokes the illusory nature of time and memory, reminding us that history is merely an imprint left behind.

Her practice revolves around themes of corporeality, employing anti-anatomy techniques. This exploration extends to the spiritual and physical realms of human, evolving into reflections on nature and the imagery of the tree.

In recent years, Polina Shcherbyna’s arts have delved into themes of loss and the potential for healing. Drawing on deep ecology, dark vitality, and the body of war, her art examines the sacralization of death, humanity's suffering, and sacrifice in the modern world through the prism of the circle of history and Christianity.

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