The exhibition presents works by Olga Volchkova. Painted in the traditional style of Eastern Orthodox icon-painting, these works are far from being traditional. Volchkova’s icons present familiar vegetables, fruit, herbs, and other plants as divine beings, paying long-overdue tribute to the spiritual dimension as well as the fundamental role plants provide to safeguard life on earth.
Born in the ancient Russian town of Tver, Olga Volchkova was trained to paint and conserve religious icons in her homeland. Moving to Eugene, OR, in 2000, Olga created her own genre of icons to deify plant species. Her techniques are also all her own- innovative and plant-based. She makes her own gesso to prime the boards on which she paints, and in her words, uses “gelatin, chalk, garlic juice, and honey.”
Nature’s Saints: Icons by Olga Volchkova is on view in the Fireside Gallery
December 2, 2023 – March 24, 2024.
St. Cattail, 2023
Acrylic on wood, 24″ x 20″
Collection of the artist
St. Tea & St. Lemon, 2013
Acrylic on wood, 30″ x 24″
Collection Pam and Rick Roman
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