CV
Olesya Gonserovskaya, artist, muralist, illustrator.
Educated in Rodchenko Art School, Media arts (Moscow, 2022), Pro Arte Institute for Young Artists (2018), and St.Petersburg State Academy of Industrial Arts, department of Monumental Arts (2015)
STATEMENT
In my projects I am inspired by the ability of people to communicate using contexts, cultural codes and connotations, as well as their ability to read between the lines and read the implied. Some of the cultural codes become relevant, some become obsolete, and I'm interested in checking how an outdated phenomenon can be rebuilt and resurrected. And what’s gonna be left. For example: Alphabet (2022), where I turn Soviet proverbs into everyday metaphors, The Little Dutches (2018), where I quote Hermitage classics on the walls of a factory in an industrial area, Rain Catalogue (2017), where I write forgotten names of rains on firewalls using stylized Morse code.
I see communication as a sign of animateness. From one project to another, I keep asking questions about the origin of life and self-consciousness without much hope for a definitive answer. In these searches, I am accompanied by the theme of corporality and human memory. For example, Ashes (2018), where I draw imperfect human bodies with ashes. The starting point for a project is often biological theories: PAIC, a follower of LUCA, (2020), where I am looking for a future artificial intelligence ancestor, Tulpa, (2022), where I grow my double using waste composting.
Sometimes I like to joke in projects and allow ambiguity in their interpretation. Often my project can be described as a question without an answer. Or a joke without an addressee.
I try to stick to as wide a range of art mediums as possible with respect for the planet and those around me. I appreciate the audience's ability to participate and the potential for site specificity. Among my favorite art mediums are those who are alive and ready to fight back in my work, to show their will (plants, compost, mold), or who imitate interactivity (drawing with ink and other materials, painting, monumental drawing, media art).
Solo shows: - alive/not\alive, curated by L. Griasnova, Aalto library, Vyborg, 2021-2022 - Non-selectio, cultural center Nevsky 20, St.Petersburg, 2018 - …all should be malapropos, A. Akhmatova museum, St.Petersburg, 2017 - Censorship, Most gallery, St. Petersburg, 2020 - Kalechina, Pereletny Kabak gallery, Moscow, 2020 - The Garbage Museaum, Colomna, 2019
Selected group exhibitions: - De_colonialanguage, series of interventions with the artist group in Berlin, 2023 - The repressions, (Halle, Germany; Belgrade, Serbia), 2023 - The Myths, Izmailovo gallery, Moscow, 2022 - Superseded Action, ZTI gallery, Moscow, 2022 - The Images of the Future, Krasnokholmskaya gallery, Moscow, 2022 - Pure media art, Fabrika ZTI gallery, Moscow, 2021 - With the care about you, Ekaterinburg, 2020 - New Anthropology, museum of S. Pavlov, 2019 - Levels, Stepan Razin Factory, 2019 - Save and Protect, General Stuff Building, Hermitage, 2018 - Silent Voices, museum in St. Peter and Paul castle, 2017 - Art Tribe, London, 2016
Selected intervention: - the Little Dutch Masters, Artpunctuation festival, St. Petersburg, 2017
Awards and contests: - Braw Amazing Book Shelf for Out of the Nest book, 2023 - iJungle illustration contest, Silver medal, 2022 - The Book Image, 2018, 2020 - Bevilacqua Prize, Venice, 2017, short-listed - Orientirs, St.Petersburg, 2014, 1st prize
Collections: - collection of Anna Akhmatova Museum - collection of CICA, modern art museum, Seul, South Korea - private collections in USA, Ukraine, Russia, France, Finland - works partly represented by WhiteLines gallery
Publications: - The Starving Artist, The Body Remembers, 2023 - The ROAR magazine #7, #9, 2023
Residency: - Ria Keburia Art Residency, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2023-2024 - Artkommunalka, Colomna, Russia, 2019