Overcoming Circumstances
Gordienko was the Third Prize winner of International Artist magazine’s Challenge No. 114, People & Figures.
Artist Arina Gordienko has always enjoyed painting faces and figures, and for several years she used her own face as a model for the works because she had the freedom to get a range of expressions. These pieces were not intended to be self-portraits, so she painted them monochromatic to obscure her identifiable features. In recent years, she has expanded to other models and has injected a variety of colors into her palette.
“I believe that there is a continuous theme across all my work,” she says. “I explore human’s ability or capacity to overcome any cruel circumstances, isolation, pain or desperation, any temptations, any contradictive and self-destructive inner impulses—an ability to overcome them all and transform this life experience into something beautiful and sublime like artworks and become a higher self—creative and free.”
Old Masters portraits also fascinate Gordienko, as she believes the emotions and feelings portrayed are trapped in time. She also draws on other sources, such as books, poetry, music and operas. Her painting Fullmoon was inspired by Richard Wagner’s opera Lohengrin.
“There is a person in the opera called Ortruda and I find her character very expressive and bright despite her negative role in the opera libretto. Ortruda was deeply experienced in all kinds of magic arts, and in one of her famous arias she sung these words: ‘Not for nothing am I versed in the most secret magic arts,’” she says. “In my painting I wanted to express Ortruda’s ‘witchy’ side and the power of her secret knowledge in her eyes. The most powerful magic activities mainly happen under the full moon so I titled my work as such—Fullmoon.”