10 Questions with Olga Shcheblykina

Olga Shcheblykina (1986) is a visual artist currently based in Steyr (Austria). Her main media are painting, installation and photography. She explores themes of sensitivity, vulnerability, corporeality, and feminism. She studied at the University of Hertfordshire, UK, and is currently pursuing her education at the University of Arts Linz, Austria. She participated in group exhibitions in such art spaces in Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece, and London, UK. In 2015 she worked with Tobias Zielony at the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts (Salzburg, Austria).

olgashcheblykina.com | @olgashcheblykina

ARTIST STATEMENT

“In my art, I use the media of painting, installation, and photography. I explore sensitivity, feminism, and self-transformation. Living the experience of isolation and changes in the world around me in 2020, I observed myself in the process of disidentification with the external environment and concentration on internal experiences, feelings, and impressions. I began to monitor these processes, which led me to a more conscious sense of my own sensitivity. Plunging into my fears and fantasies, vulnerability and aggressiveness, I began to hear my inner voice more clearly, observing the existence of the inner world and its relation to my physical body. I explored suppressed and hidden emotions and manifested sensitivity in all its diversity as the main power that is not accepted by society but can transform personality towards conscious acceptance and creation. 

The transformation of internal impulses in the external world, re-creation, and disintegration of the self, the transition of wildlife into the culture lead my art. In the series Portraits of Fear, I work with the form of a portrait. Loneliness, isolation, and terror reveal themselves through the colors and plastics. The paintings in this series are colourful and decorative, showing the stigmatized aspects of fear is. These portraits are painted with a colourful rainbow of funeral wreaths. The emotion should be hidden behind the coloured decorations and conquered not through acceptance but through complete rejection.

Another series is called Apparatus. It continues the expressionist tradition and creating biotic construction mixing a picturesque colourful flesh. In this project, I try to reflect on the complex relationship structure between a person and a body, transforming internal organs into intricate biomorphic clusters, turning them into decorative vessels. The thinnest threads that bind chaotic substances are at the same time a restraining element of this fragile structure and a channel through which food, air, and blood enter. The series' paintings do not reflect the anatomical reality but convey the feeling of plasticity within these flesh clots when it seems that they are about to beat. The plasticity that allows the body to exist becomes the basis for the decorative appeal of the objects.

I'm also working on installations as part of an artistic duo Institute of Sensitivity.”

- Olga Shcheblykina

INTERVIEW

First of all, tell our readers a little bit about you. Who you are and how did you start experimenting with images? 

I am a self-taught artist, and my artistic path was rather winding. When I was a child, I was painting and drawing all the time, but I did not take this passion seriously until recently. I graduated from university as a designer and illustrator. The education that I received was more about ideas than about realization. Although the compulsory study of the academic basics of drawing and painting is long outdated standards, the thoughts that I am not good enough sat quite tightly in my head and prevented me from moving in the direction of Arts. Until 2019 I had "normal jobs" and did not even think about doing art. In 2019 just before the pandemic, I finally realized who I am, and it changed everything. So I quit my job to become an artist.

What is your personal aim as an artist? 

First of all, art is my language, and I just want to speak. I have always been silent so much in my life, sometimes it was scary and difficult to speak out loud, but with art, it is much easier. It would be pretty cool to say at least some of what is in my head. Besides, the process is very exciting, so one of my goals is definitely to enjoy it.

Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What aspect of your work do you pay particular attention to? 

Creating art is an endless process for me; even when I'm not painting, I'm scrolling thoughts in my head and thinking about ideas, hundreds of different ideas. Sometimes I go deeper, sometimes I dangle on the surface. The themes that I explore are part of my life; they exist in me, live with me and change with me. Therefore, I pay special attention to maintaining spontaneity in my practice. Although I am quite an organized person, so my spontaneity is usually well planned.

Let's talk about your color palette and techniques. Do you have recurring colors in your work? And what are your preferred techniques? 

I love dark backgrounds; the depth of dark colours attracts me so much. Also, I use a fairly vivid palette. Maybe because I grew up in the USSR, everything was not very bright there, and I always adored neon and everything shiny. So far, I am very restrained letting this into my paintings, but let's see how it goes. And I could only say about techniques that I am in an endless search. I would like to always be in motion, each time going a little further, perhaps beyond the canvas.

Did you experiment with anything new recently? Or is there anything you want to try in the future? 

Since I am a self-taught artist, all I do now is a big experiment. Each step is something new for me. Perhaps I would like to make more tactile objects, combine my painting with sculpture, and use all the space around and turn it into some kind of picturesque theatre. So far, these are rather not formalized ideas but feelings with which I would like to work further.

Where do you draw inspiration? Do you have any specific reference? 

Outsider art inspires me the most. Artists such as Zinaida Babina, Bill Traylor, Aloïse Corbaz, Nikolai Kurilov, many others. I believe that this honesty of self-expression is inherent in everyone; just not everyone is free enough to manifest it, not even all professional artists.

What is your favorite experience as an artist so far? 

At the moment, I like most of all what I most lack. It is communication, collaboration, exchange of experience and ideas—life within the artistic community.

What are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting you can tell us about? 

Of course! I am currently working on two projects. One is a huge canvas. It continues my anatomical series research. And the second one is a joint project with the Moscow artist Panika Derevya. We found the Institution of Sensitivity art group. Within this group, we create interactive tactile-visual objects. We have now completed sketches for new objects, and we are planning their release and further exposure.

What is one lesson you learnt from this past year experience? And how did it help you further develop your art? 

To focus on yourself in everything, hear yourself, and try to understand yourself first. All year I built relationships with myself, and this helped me a lot to go through all the mess both in my life and in the world around me. Having found support inside, I lost the fear of manifesting myself in the outside world. So I do what I want now. I want to smudge the paint on the canvas, and why not. If something does not work out, I just scrape off the paint without reproaching myself and paint again.

Finally, share something you would like the world to know about you? 

It will be much more interesting if, instead of reading, people will try to unravel my art and perhaps even find their meanings in it. In any case, everyone sees only their reflection in everything, so it would be cool if the one who reads this thought about him/herself directly now.