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
    • 17.5cm x 30cm
    • Years
    • 2023
    • Framing
    • No framed

Description

"In the visual basis of the "Something about a dead bird" series, I create images from photographs of dead birds that I have been photographing on the streets of different cities and countries for the past last years. In this way, I form reflections on death, how it has changed before our eyes, dressed in the armor of a socio-political context, it has turned into cold statistics and counts of the dead and wounded.

I think about how a collection of pain builds up over a lifetime, and how humanity adapts to any degree of pain. Perhaps soon there will be nothing left that can touch our souls. Because wartime as matter always tries to return man to the animal world, putting the goal of "survival" in the first place. In the iconographic tradition, the bird is a symbol of the holy spirit. By depicting a dead bird, I indicate the death of the spiritual, interweaving the two different concepts of spirit and spirituality with the image of death, thus sacralizing death.

In anticipation of the changes of the present, it is impossible to predict the fate of mankind. It is only noticeable how the spiritual in a person dies or is preserved in a "cocoon" until it becomes important again and can be reborn."

Polina Shcherbyna

Something About a Dead Bird

2023, Wood, Firing painting , 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:

    1535 MB DNG File

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