ELENA, WONDERFUL!

Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation, member of the Union of Artists of Russia, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Decorative and Applied Arts at the Volgograd Institute of Arts and Culture, Elena Orlova considers work with children to be the main cause of her life. She seeks and finds a path to the child’s soul in the name of affirming humanistic principles. Orlova is convinced that creativity introduces a person to culture and art — and, broadly speaking, that is the upbringing of a Human Being. But only on the condition that children’s creativity is taken seriously. This is exactly what her gallery has been asserting for more than fifteen years.

Incidentally, before announcing her unique project — the Volgograd Children’s Gallery became the first in Russia, and its museum principle of organization still remains the only one of its kind — Elena Vladimirovna spent ten years collecting children’s works. Thus, by the time the gallery appeared, it possessed a collection of fifteen thousand masterpieces by young artists — works by participants in various exhibitions, competitions, and biennales. Today the regional gallery already has twenty-two thousand paintings from 36 countries.

Her friends say that the very idea proved viable thanks to a quality rare for an artist — the firmness that is characteristic precisely of Orlova. True, one would hardly suspect such a quality in this refined and gentle-looking woman. Yet it seems that nature itself made her an artist: Elena Orlova belongs to those masters who are capable of research in art. At the exhibition in the Children’s Gallery, Orlova’s special “signature” will be presented: the distinctive feature of her manner of painting is that the brushstroke on the canvas “breaks down” color. Her wonderful watercolors will show this magical effect. At the same time, Elena Vladimirovna is also a recognized graphic artist, and works in this genre will also be shown here in a kind of retrospective. In addition, a catalogue of Orlova’s works has been published for the first time especially for the anniversary exhibition. Her solo exhibitions have taken place not only in Russia, but also in the United States, Belgium, and France — her paintings were awaited there.

…In the halls of the gallery, renovated for its fifteenth anniversary last year, it is bright not only because of the wide windows — there is always much joy here: it flows from the walls, or rather from the canvases created by children. Here, real artists teach them the art of transforming a world that must be beautiful.

And here is what lies ahead: the Children’s Gallery is preparing a charity auction, which will apparently take place in January. It will feature works by other creative people — actors, musicians — who also want to tell the world something of their own through color. The auction, incidentally, will raise funds for one of the region’s children’s homes.

Nina LOGACHEVA, INTER-Press No. 50 (721), 21.12.2006