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| Show's Layout | Opening Reception | Selected Artwork |
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Irina Ivanova's style of painting by oil on canvas is very different from the traditional style. The medium is oil, but it is treated as if it were watercolor. Many transparent layers are applied one upon another, creating very subtle surfaces of different shades of color. In combination with firm graphical line this technique creates a very different look, inspired by traditional Japanese art.
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Irina studied methods of watercolor since her childhood. Starting in the art school at the age of 9, she was trained in traditional techniques of watercolor painting. Russian artistic and scholastic tradition in art has a very profound and deeply unique history of watercolor, but through years of practice and studies, by the time of Irina getting Master's Degree in graduate school, she started to bring in a lot of innovations in her, before very traditional, style. The nature of those innovations came from studies of oriental techniques: painting by ink, Chinese guohua painting, Japanese Sumi-e. Gradually, her method of watercolor painting was shaped into a very unique style, integrating European watercolor traditions with methods and logic of Oriental painting.
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All ink on paper artwork in the collection were created only with a wooden stick, without any other tools. This is an ancient oriental technique that was learned by Irina from early stages of her art education, and she practiced in this medium through decades, attaining absolute mastery. This technique forces the artist to search for the single most precise line and to follow minimalistic and empirical approach.
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Everything that was printed digitally originated as a free-hand fine art, made in different mediums, such as oil on canvas, watercolor, gouache etc. Digitizing of own artwork was taken by Irina V. Ivanova as another creative opportunity, making possible fusion of different artworks created by her at different times and in different mediums. This approach became a visual analogy of synthesizing music, a very creative and inspiring technique. Nothing in this computer medium is original itself. Computer is used as merely a special tool of synthesizing and reinterpreting previous art by Irina; however, very often the digitized print becomes the new beginning of new, different artwork altogether. If it is printed on the canvas, it is usually continued with oil and practically becomes a mixed medium piece, inspired by print but accomplished in oil: oil on canvas and digital print artwork. If it is printed on paper, it is usually accomplished by ink or watercolor and becomes mixed medium piece of digital print and ink, or digital print and watercolor.
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This unique methodology of painting on artificial silk (woven nylon) is Irina's own invention. The uniqueness of the style is in how the pigment is applied to the fabric. This method of painting is "borrowed" from the watercolor technique, when the paint is allowed to freely flow on the fabric, creating fusion of different shades and shadows, sophisticated forms and silhouettes. It is a very demanding technique, because it makes correcting mistakes virtually impossible. If we will have to name it somehow, it could be named "the visual improvisation," because it is impossible to repeat same effect twice with this technique.
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