Grass, After I.Shishkin, 2019
Computer animation and stop-motion, duration differs (at least 1 min), 1920×1080 px. For a specific installation in Ground Solyanka, the video was projected over the wall with large metal construction staples.
A drawing by a prominent 19th-century Russian landscape painter Ivan Shishkin — Study, 1884 — is translated into the moving composition with metal staples as the main drawing actors. In random order, the staples seem to rise above the white surface and, at an arbitrary speed, begin to move around one of their legs-axes. Then at some point, the metal actors return to a flat graphic drawing. This animated sketch is an invitation to touch on dichotomies — artificial, inanimate-living, culture and nature, order and chaos, and handmade vs machine-made, the first impression and subsequent impressions.
The drawing is not what it seemed at first. Is the landscape, or more specifically Russian “nature” that Shishkin artworks stand for — also not what it seemed?
