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ANNA SMETANENKO​

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Featured in Issues 6 and 7 ​​​​​​​

On the mountain in Eski Kermen.JPG

​​​​​​​​​“On the mountain in Eski Kermen (Crimea, Ukraine)”

2014

Oil painting

30 x 40 cm

 

I made this painting as a memory dedicated to Crimea. It was annexed in 2014 and I visited it the summer before. It was an amazing journey. We climbed the mountain 400 meters above the sea level and the process of climbing as well as the view were breathtaking. The nature over there is truly beautiful. I just can’t believe Crimea is still annexed… The climbing of the mountain can be seen as the difficulty Crimean Tatars have to go through fighting for their culture.

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This painting also appeared in Articulation magazine in 2015.

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About the art: 

 

My paintings are mostly abstract, they are about ambient and medium (more on that later). I paint what I feel and paintings communicate back to me. I enjoy this dialogue. Art is the only language for the non-tongued. I don’t need words to create an emotion.

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Medium is the bridge between the immaterial world, the spiritual and the physical form. I wonder how does that happen? Where do thoughts come from? How does the world come into being? Before, artists were excavating physical world onto a canvas, studying the reality of an object, nature. Now we simply call it – Academical art. But since the 20th century it has changed, the language of art is different now. We use shapes, objects and metaphors to speak about difficult concepts. We are still learning this language. Futurists broke the 2D plane, got curious about lightbulb, trains and changed the matter. Yet they never used objects of their curiosity. So don’t artists of the 21st century. We got used to computers, internet and cell phones. Yet we don’t dive into their meaning, we only use them. Artists always knew their tools well (pigment, paint, brushes) yet in the 21st century, when tools are so difficult to study, we are only users. We shouldn’t just be clickers of the button, but study cybernetics, at least a little bit. I am myself still far away from it, but it is a message I want to convey to people, maybe somebody will get inspired by it. God blessed me with some realizations and I want to share them. There are only 3 artists: God-Father, God-Son and Holy Spirit. Mediated.​​​​

Peaceful protest (1).JPG

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"Peaceful protest”

2013

Oil painting

20 x 30 cm

 

I was so hurt when I saw how police attacked peaceful students on Maidan. I was heartbroken. At that time, I was a freshman in the Netherlands so I was watching/reading news almost 24/7. I couldn’t help it. I made series of paintings dedicated to Maidan. I wanted to document what was happening.

 

About Ukraine in my art:

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When Maidan happened, I couldn’t not paint about it. I had to share what was happening. The same with full scale war, except that I was creating ideas (social projects, installations) instead of paintings. I am still on my way to realizing them.

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I believe that revolutions, war have to be spoken of so that people learn about them. We must never forget the price of freedom.

 

My background:

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As a child I was playing a violin. I also painted for some time, but not for long. My dad said I made nice photographs, so somehow it grew into my hobby and from there I started painting again. With photography, I was interested in human emotion, so I was making a lot of portraits. Painting was a true way to express myself. I found a lot of freedom in it as it was not linked to anything earthly or physical. You can paint anything. I am also doing photocompositions – a mix of photography and painting – where both worlds meet: physical and abstract. I haven’t done installations, sculpture, or Arduino projects in a while, but hope that will change soon.

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@anna_smetanenko

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