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Virtual Artist Talk With Olga Volchkova
Thursday, December 7 from 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
FREE
Join us on Zoom for a live virtual conversation with artist Olga Volchkova.
Thursday, December 7 | 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM CT
Artist Olga Volchkova will discuss her work, on display at TMORA from December 2, 2023 through March 24, 2024 in Nature’s Saints: Icons by Olga Volchkova. Painted in the traditional style of Eastern Orthodox icon-painting, 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. Use the button below to register for free and you will receive the link to join us on Zoom. Attendees will have the opportunity to submit questions for the Q&A.
This event is free and will be presented on Zoom.* Please register in advance.
REGISTER
Upon registering for this event, you will be sent a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting via Zoom.
*This event will be recorded and will be available for viewing after the event is concluded.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Biography
Olga lives in Eugene, Oregon. She was born in the Soviet Union in 1970, and trained as a professional icon painter and conservator. She moved to the United States in 1998, and over a decade ago she began to use her knowledge of Orthodox iconography in an unorthodox way, combined with her love of the natural world, to create provocative paintings that explore our rich relationships with plants.
I canonize all the creatures of nature, primarily plants. My intent is to draw attention towards their genuine importance. I thought it would be appropriate to turn iconographic techniques — of reverence and respect — away from their traditional subjects, and towards the actual ecologies that we depend upon. For example, I spent months creating an icon to the little creature chloroplast, without which humans would have never emerged and without which we cannot survive. When I heard everyone in Oregon talking about reuse, upcycling, and ecological sustainability, I realized that, for me, canonizing nature is an appropriate, sustainable reuse of traditional artistic techniques, wherever they’re from. Iconography makes people feel there’s something godlike and sacred as they approach the paintings, but when they get close, they see these stories, ideas, shapes, colors, and facts, within a universe they can connect with. I want people to stop, look, and understand that we are not the biggest part of nature. We’re just privileged, using all of nature, without thinking about the effect … but, these are paintings, not lectures … they’re also about the human pleasures of being in harmony with nature. As people, and as a society, we want to move back into the embrace of nature. We’ve just been distracted.
