Elena Orlova’s long-awaited exhibition has taken place. That is the first piece of good news. The second piece of good news is that it will be held in the year of the 25th anniversary of the Children’s Art Gallery, founded and once directed by Elena Vladimirovna. Five years ago Elena Orlova became head of the Volgograd Museum of Fine Arts. Here is what art historian Varvara Ozyorina, Orlova’s deputy, writes about her.
The unity of feelings, emotions and impressions lies naturally and effortlessly on the textured, absorbent surface of watercolor paper.
The lightness and impulse, weightlessness and swiftness of every image imply an extraordinarily complex, precise and labor-intensive structure of embodiment.
The only true path toward the creative goal — revelation — exists as the dominant idea in every work without exception.
Still lifes and landscapes are portraits of a personal mood, delicately created from hundreds of particles of color and meaning and expressing the artist’s own aesthetic position.
Watercolor softness, the fluidity of lines and forms, and the coloristic consonance of details come together in a subtle, refined decorativeness that deliberately frees personal art from any ideology.
Almost tangible impressions of transparent and humid air, of the tremor of flowers, of solemnity and everyday life, are generated by a synthesis of the creative principles of a traditional school and a strong individual style.
The real object confidently and boldly acquires the aesthetic features of an ideal, fantastic character in a creative action, while in its metamorphoses it does not lose its living essence, mobility and changeability.
Love for nature, always sincere, is felt at once and is visible to the naked eye, allowing the viewer to receive aesthetic pleasure and to enjoy the author’s artistic taste.
The near-pointillist watercolor manner is a kind of personal invention, developed in contrast to the technique of an even, smooth, saturated, deep and matte surface.
An impressively progressive gift for finding and conveying the aesthetic qualities of nature.
An active attitude to life, feminine charm and fruitful optimism, mixed with a drop of umber (“for storms of the soul”), ultramarine (“for you and me”), cadmium and carmine lake (“the merging of lips”), create the creative palette of her boundless universe.
PS
I take my black pencil
And draw a white blizzard,
An old city — new gouache,
And my hopes — watercolor.
Bright Prussian blue —
The sky above your head.
A drop of umber — for storms of the soul,
And ultramarine — for you and me.
On the palette — a scarlet spot,
With a palette knife — the line of fate,
With a fine pen — what has been ordained,
White and black — if only, perhaps.
I would like to draw your eyes —
Yellow ochre and watercolor Mars.
Only I cannot understand who said
That ultramarine alone is for us.
A washed-out profile — water has spread.
Cadmium and carmine lake — the merging of lips.
Paints that always run out
In the casing of tormented tubes.
Never mind, it will pass, do not frown!
I will set off to the shop in search of
Yellow ochre, Prussian blue,
And for you and me — ultramarine.
Elena Orlova
