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
- 160cm x 150cm
- Years
- 2016
- Framing
- No framed

- Styles
- - Contemporary
- Medium

Description

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

First

2016, Painting, Oil, Author's technique, Canvas , 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:
1677 MB DNG File