solo exhibition in St. Petersburg | Abramova gallery
Olga Muravina’s artistic world is woven from childhood memories, Soviet cartoons, mother’s experiences, dreams and nature. His characters – children, dolls, teddy bears, owls, rhinoceroses, dogs and other creatures are beyond the vanity of the world by virtue of their nature – half animal, half childlike. Light oblivion, hypersensitivity and serenity are characteristic of a child immersed in the unconscious, when he is united with the world around him and the animals are humanized. In combination with the material, which, thanks to the author’s masterful work with bronze, is perceived as so weighty and ancient that it can reach several millennia in our minds, the works are fascinating like ancient art with its fetishes, sublimity and subtle humor. Yet for all its mystery, it speaks in a language understandable to the consciousness of the modern viewer, which soars with the slightest whiff of our infant dreams’ memories.
Olga Muravina’s sculptures fit seamlessly into any space, whether it is a natural landscape or an apartment. This is another feature, which, firstly, brings the author closer to Zen artists, who placed their Buddhas among rocks or mountain rivers, fields and gardens. Secondly, it indicates the degree of freedom of thought of the artist, a sense of the material and deep immersion into his subject: the female, maternal origin prevails in the works, which is characterized by the manifestation of tenderness and unconditional love – with these qualities the land and the green landscapes are combined flawlessly. It is not surprising that exactly bronze was chosen for the work, as it is the most malleable material for the realization of the plastic idea.
Another aspect is the therapeutic. Thanks to the sincerity of Olga Muravina’s work, the viewer can literally feel the condition that emanates from the sculptures. This is a vivid example of the very aura of a work of art that Walter Benjamin wrote about back in the 20th century in his work “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility”: the presence of a special aura is both a marker of genuine creativity and originality of the author, and the superficiality of the work in the absence of it.
There is nothing supernatural here – one work, seen live, is enough to feel it. At the exhibition “Slight Oblivion” the viewer is lucky to contemplate several works in one space: together they create a very special polyphonic sound. We find ourselves in the temple of subtle feelings that each of us experienced when we were a child – but they have not disappeared, but are hidden within each of us – it is our soulfulness, receptivity, sensuality and other qualities, the language of which speaks our soul.
Diana Abramova