Nathalia Somova GESTURE OF THE ARTISTWe are accustomed to the expression "world of the artist," face of the artist, manner of the artist, hand of the artist. The expression which often confuses us, however, is "gesture of the artist." Namely the gesture of the artist interpreted as the quintessence of his spiritual will, as the final act of the transformation of inner searches and reflections into the visual verification of them on canvas, in many respects allowing for creative individuality, for |
"SELF_PORTRAIT" c.o. 40�50 1992y |
the rhythms of sensation, for the concentration of spiritual energy and its pulse. ln today's stream of artistic output, when styles, manners, trends have at times woven themselves into the general conglomerate, it is possible to discern individuality and to recognize it among others specifically on the level of the gesture of the artist. The capacity of the expressive power of the gesture allows for the building of .complex metaphorical compositions, possessed not only by a powerful associative line, but also gravitating towards a symbolic-conceptual beginning. In the fullest sense this relates to the compositions of artist Natalya Somova. In her figurative works, where the gesture is subordinate to form and just begins to acquire an individual meaning, the colored structure of the canvas is saturated and thick, but the individuality of the author is hidden behind the typological signs of a "Van Gogh-like landscape" � the throbbing energy, hard to contain within the limits of a traditional landscape, can already be felt. Therefore, her gradual "liberation" from theme and subject seems logical, as she turns toward free composition based on an observed scene, cleansed from any natural realia, on a biblical subject, transformed into a mere allusion, on poetic thoughts, having found a response in the adequacy of senses from a word and an artistic gesture. What's more, at the exhibit in the Central House of Artists one can observe the widest range of the use of this gesture � reflected in just a hint of the contours of the heads of Mary and Christ in a work of the same name, with an introduction in a similarly stylistic work "Exile from Paradise" of soft watercolor (allusions to the trees of Paradise) fragments, to more saturated works, where the considered impulsiveness of the gesture builds a metaphor � of poetry on canvas, radiating outside the energy of rhythmically organized "splashes" of the soul of the artist.Many of the works,- if not most of them, are built on the intentionally unsaid, the intentionally unagreed upon, as if based on a great trust of the viewer, on the expectation of his associative memory, power of imagination, ability to experience and sympathize. This non-finito, which makes the viewer a cocreator of the works of Somova, allows for him to discover a rare feeling of self-control, for the process of contemplating her works does not suppress the viewer, does not make him an object of suppression by the artist, but, on the contrary, trustingly converses with his secret thoughts, feelings, sufferings, in other words, with his frequently unconscience layers of existence. This, then, becomes a distinctive trait of his artistic conception. And in it a significant place is given to the ratio of space and the trace of the artist's paintbrush on canvas, and from their relationship, from their interaction � and here we have an entire spectrum � from the pressure of the flatness � of the space on the gesture. The trace of the brush or the flatness becomes subordnate, depending on the sensation which arises in the viewer. Naturally, only the experienced viewer is empowered to understand that a blank place on the canvas, an unfilled color-light-form-figure-construction is not emptiness, but an aimed design, saturated space. This the artist makes by tactful means of artistic expression, of spiritual expressiveness, which is content not with "verbose" sentences, but with key words � analogies by visual stimulators of the feelings and thoughts of the viewer. And again the gesture of the artist, like the emanation of his artistic will, forms on the canvas an energy field which has points of more saturated concentration, and less, has more complex spatial modulation, and less, and always � only in every specific case, in every work this flatness, literally before us becomes spatially deep, with saturated modulations of a colored stream now cut up, now thick, now with readings of dramatic tonality, now lyric and romantic. This is the canvas of Natalya Somova. Valery PERFILIEV |
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