ON THE CREATIVE PROCESS
by Tatyana Zhurkov
Materials suggest what is to be done. They speak to me.
Since I was a child, everywhere I go, whatever I see, I imagine what could be built out of it. For example, when i first saw the kind of furniture store where you can buy modular units, I wanted to take everything apart and re-make my own creation. It must be something like what Louise Nevelson did with her wooden boxes.
Michelangelo said you should take the creature out of the stone. I search for the formula to build something, but it can emerge as anything. Sometimes I know what will come out. Sometimes not. A piece is changed many times. The process is experimental. Dimensions are more felt than measured. There are no rules. If I made a sketch it would kill the process. The sources of inspiration in modern art can be like drops of water in the large ocean of world culture over all time.
My Art is a new language, embodying all my experiences and talents. Plastic bracelets, jewelry, junk items found in Chinatown, inspire me to make new compositions.
PLASTICS:
The greatest advantage of working with plastic, first of all, is the wide range of colors, often transparent. Secondly plastic is easier to work with than other materials such as glass- easier to drill, cut, shape and combine with other materials. Some plastic is soft and flexible. For a sculptor this is important. When you paint you mix colors on a palette. With plastic you mix colors by turning the pieces in front of the light. You mix colors with your eye. Some plastics magnify and refract light. Caterpillars and butterflys experience metamorphosis. They transform themselves from one existence to another. Out of one stage of creature comes a new life. Death and rebirth.
TUBES:
I especially like tubes, because they seem to have important functions. I see their functions in trees, human arteries. They are an essential component in nature and building. In my art tubes hold pieces together, making a solid body. Tubes give my objects flexibility.
SCISSORS:
Scissors are a pure element of construction - two circles, two blades that move. A magical formula.
HEADS:
I do not ever build pure abstractions. Faces give life and identity to my creations.
Now I look at genetic structures, but I am not a scientist. I am an artist. I am not the kind of artist who participates in the "genetic esthetic" movement, where artists use their own blood, feces, or close-up photos of their eyes as self-expressions.
I am more of a poet, a romantic, a sculptor and creator. For me it is more a religious experience - this process of creating beauty. I am in love with this world and my art is a quiet song to a new world.
Until the beginning of the 20th century art was about the creation of life by God, heavily influenced by Christianity. Abstract art searched for a new language free of traditions. My language is 21st century. |
