Tatiana KUZMINA
THE more seriously one regards a person, the harder it becomes to speak about them: thoughts seem too superficial, and words even more so. It is precisely the depth of one’s perception of the inner image that gets in the way! And what is to be done with that?
Make an attempt. Explain, at least, the main thing — the very most important thing.
WORK
Elena Orlova is the director of the Regional Children’s Art Gallery she created and of the only Museum of Children’s Creativity in the country. She is an Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation, a member of the Union of Artists of the Russian Federation, a professor, and Head of the Department of Decorative and Applied Arts at the Volgograd Institute of Arts and Culture. Her creative specialization is graphics. Her contribution to the development of Volgograd’s culture is enormous and indisputable. Anyone who has visited the Gallery at least once already knows what an ideal institution for nurturing young talents should be like. There is an eternal celebration of the spirit there. There is purity in every sense. And one can probably find such wonderful, intelligent teachers nowhere else. Only in the Gallery.
Her students adore her: with her, one can talk about life. Art, the secrets of craft — that goes without saying; but one rarely discusses one’s fate, personal anxieties, and dreams with a teacher. Elena Orlova has a rare gift for communicating with students, one that excludes both false familiarity and arrogance. She is their friend — sincere and reliable. Yet she knows how to demand, too!
VOCATION
I have been forbidden to mention the anniversary; Elena cannot stand any fuss over personal dates. But the opening of her solo exhibition, which took place on December 25 of last year, must nevertheless be explained by the anniversary that had arrived. The city’s public managed to persuade her, even to shame her a little — one must have a conscience, after all. Elena shows her works very rarely and reluctantly, while everyone wants to see them. There are people who torment themselves with a mania for perfection, and it takes a great deal of effort for them to agree to become the center of general attention… Orlova is one of them. Now, fortunately, for the first time in her life she has made public more than 80 of her works! Many Volgograd residents who know the artist well admitted to me that even they had not suspected such scale in her. And those who had never seen her paintings before asked in bewilderment where such beauty had been hidden until now.
In a storeroom, in closets, on the mezzanines… And quite a lot still remains there.
What was most striking at the exhibition was the breadth of genres: still lifes, architectural landscapes, portraits — many portraits — book illustrations, batiks. Large-format color and monochrome watercolors, very occasionally acrylic, mixed media. The mastery is simply mad, the imagination extraordinarily rich. A magnificent sense of color and composition. Her creative manner, alas, resists description because of the rare originality and refinement of the painting. And what a powerful emotional intensity!.. Well, if one tries
to define at least somehow the semantic content, the dominant theme… Words, words, words. It has to be seen.
Love… Tragic lyricism… The happiness of being… The sorrow of hopes unfulfilled… Magical dreams… The flight of a dream… The search for an ideal… Sad memories… Women’s tears… Love!
PERSONAL STYLE
Elena Orlova’s refined appearance suggests, to the enlightened Russian eye, a classical European standard. Orlova is graceful and elegant, ironic and endlessly charming. She attracts extraordinary, ardent people who are not afraid of complex, sharp interlocutors. Elena is complex and sharp. I do not say “intelligent” only because to call such an astonishing lady intelligent would be almost to insult her. Elena needs no attestations at all — she is self-sufficient in her turbulent, bottomless inner world, in her always deep feelings, in her incomparable art. Somehow, the democratic style of her behavior combines perfectly with a strict and exacting inward reserve, felt by everyone who might suddenly wish to “appropriate” her, to call her simply “Lenka,” to clap her on the shoulder. It is impossible; neither tongue nor hand would obey: this Russian marquise knows how to keep her distance. Yet she also knows how to trust unreservedly and irrevocably, with her whole soul…
She is free and independent, devoted and sarcastic, proud and generous. Different, paradoxical. Talented!
And she also writes wonderful poems…
The more one comes to know Elena Orlova, the less one knows her. She is always unexpected.
