One of the more intrepid Victorian women travellers once fell into a heavily spiked elephant trap. Clearly unintimidated by the experience, she sat down instead and wrote a text in praise of the virtues of a thick woollen skirt. It might not be the height of fashion, or even the most obviously appropriate thing to be wearing in tropical Africa, but if you were going to fall into an elephant trap it could hardly be bettered. Traditional Soviet art training seems to be rather the same. Certainly it is not fashionable anywhere today to be be taught how to draw, or how to copy a pre-existent style, or how to apply oil paint to canvas in the time-honoured fashion. Recipients of such an education might even think that, thrown into the maelstrom of contemporary international art, they would find little or no use for all they had so laboriously learnt. But, like a thick woollen skirt, it is great to be able to fall back on it in moments of danger.

Eugenia Vronskaya is living (very living) proof of the truth of all this. She was born in Moscow in 1966, and lived there until she first came to London at the age of 23. Someone, presumably, must have spotted in her a bent for art when she was still a child, for, enthusiastic as the Soviets were about vocational training from an early age, it must, even there, be fairly exceptional to be studying the techniques of icon paintings by the age of nine, and to move on to Krasnopresninskaya (the Moscow School of Art) at fifteen. Not only that, but at seventeen to go the Moscow Fine Art University, and emerge seven years later with a BA and MA in Fine Art.

That sounds like, and is, a lot of training. But of course in the 1970s Russia was only just beginning to throw off the trammels of Stalinism, and perestroika took even longer to filter down through the academies. Consequently, all Vronskaya's training was, by Western standards, very conservative and restrictive, heavily overshadowed by the tenets of Socialist Realism. Theirs not to ask why and for what: they simply learned how to draw anything put in front of them, and to do a very competent job of painting it, whether the subject turned them on or not.

This was very much Vronskaya's mind-set when she arrived in London to study at the Royal College of Art, where, offered a choice between painting and printmaking, she very sensibly chose both and, even more sensibly, shared her decision with nobody, simply signing on to do an MA in painting and, once ensconced, to make as much use of the print-making facilities as she could contrive as well. All this meant that she was - I was going to say a fish out of water in the Royal College post-Hornsey, but a closer metaphor is a goldfish swimming confidently through a shoal of minnows. It was to the realist mainstream of Russian art, uncluttered by 'aberrations' like Constructivism, that Vronskaya belonged at the time of her first solo exhibition in London, at the Boundary Gallery in 1990. But it was no doubt inevitable that, once the Pandora's Box of modern eclecticism had been opened to her at art school in London, she could not resist breaking out of what must then have seemed to her a cage of realism, and dabbling, if only temporarily, in abstraction, the making of installations, and all sorts of other things not accounted for in Moscow's Groves of Academe.

At the same time she got married, had two children, and went with her husband when his job took him to Inverness. With so much going on, it is not surprising that she disappeared from the London art scene for a few years. But now she has decided to put in an appearance again - with electrifying results. And it is surely at this time that she (and we) can appreciate the advantages of possessing the art world's equivalent of a thick woollen skirt. Clearly she has learnt a lot from her adventures into less formal kinds of art: she has loosened up and come to look more like a British painter than a Russian.

But the disciplines of her original training are still in operation, a valuable support in times of indecision, a wholly stable base for venturing out into more dangerous territory. And curiously enough, that is the one thing she has not done - venturing out, that is - in the purely literal sense. She is still living in Inverness, amid some of the most spectacular scenery in the British Isles, and fully appreciates the beauty of her physical surroundings.

All the same, she says, "I am not attracted to paint landscape as such. When I look at it, I love it, and enjoy being there, yet it does not bring this other in me, when I feel I have to reach for the paints. But when I look at the configuration created by a jumble of the clutter of mugs and jars crowded on the kitchen sink, transformed by the light streaming through the window, it sets me off. It's the light, the form, the space, the mystery of it... The oddness and strangeness echoes something it me (whatever it is) and sets me to paint."

In other words, she is more of a Morandi than a Turner. And why not? Many artists have been content to see the world in a grain of sand, and eternity in a wild flower. And admittedly there can be something slightly - just slightly - inhuman about them: one finds oneself thinking, with W.S. Gilbert, "If he's content with a vegetable love Which would certainly not suit me, Then what a remarkably pure young man that pure young man must be." And purity of that kind tends to be more admirable than attractive. But if we pursue the comparison between Morandi and Vronskaya a little further, we come to an essential difference between them. Morandi was completely happy with his little collection of bottles and jars and canisters on a table; and there are pictures of great beauty where one feels that Vronskaya might feel the same, provided that the colours and textures of the bottles and jars are pitched in a higher and more varied register than Morandi would ever allow. But pictures by Vronskaya which isolate the crockery and glass are very much in the minority.

We have only to look at the drawings - and Vronskaya has few rivals in Britain for sheer draughtsmanship - to see exactly why. Some of the most touching of the drawings are of one of her children, and over and over again in the paintings come the evidences of their presence, in her home and her life. When the children are not visibly there, their games and toys are. Sometimes even jumbled up with the washing on the draining board, in a mixture at once realistic and surrealistic.

These are the paintings which most obviously assert their own magic, as they move in a tight-knit circle from painting to painting. Here the three little men, one of them a snowman, live in the shadow of the relatively giant grotesque mask which dominates another painting; there, in a third painting, the three of them are out on their own, in an abstracted blue universe with the hint of a starlit night - and suddenly, irrationally, one thinks of the Three Wise Men at the Nativity of Christ. Elsewhere, we seem on the threshold of Legoland - except that, transformed in Vronskaya's visionary imagination, the pieces become objects of wonder and romance, much as the children must see them.

And underlying it all, and in a sense validating it, is that superb Russian technique. Without the imagination, the technique would still not be nothing: at the very least it would be an object of admiration. But allied with the intense romantic imagination of Vronskaya, who sees everything through the eyes of wonder, it gives us the sort of rounded, integrated experience that only the very finest artworks can convey. Are Vronskaya's pictures classics in the making? I can think of little else in the current crop of art which comes anywhere near.

'An Altar and Fruits and A Flame’

Eugenie Vronskaya’s latest body of work, ‘An Altar and Fruits and A Flame’, demonstrates her capacity to engage the viewer on many levels; formally, aesthetically, emotionally and psychologically. Her proficiency as a draughtswoman and skill at composition is astonishing. Illumination is at the heart of her work, investing everyday objects with a power and luminosity that never ceases to fascinate and challenge the viewer.

The fusion of beauty and unease in her work is one of its most potent qualities. ‘Still Life’, a human body bent over in a prayer position, is an excellent example, an arrangement of line and object that ironically suggests a life drawing.

The freshness and spontaneity of drawn marks are preserved in this painting, contrasting with the mask forming the head. Tilted uncomfortably, it is modelled with the precision of a Dutch master. This tension between live human body and dead object is palpable. Realism in this work is not literal, nor is it to be taken for granted. Techniques are seamlessly grafted to form the body in a dialogue of unease, a marriage between life and death that epitomises the human condition.

The play of light over the back contrasts with the composition of the body in a way that is supremely beautiful and equally disturbing. Amazingly the plausibility of the figure itself is completely maintained. Beneath the mask eyes stare out at the viewer in a gaze which is penetrating and quietly confrontational with the body pushed to the upper edge of the picture plane.

The way in which the figure evokes a psychological, emotive response is reminiscent of Kokoschka. The human stage is always present, even in a composition comprised purely of objects such as ‘Black Sheep’ or ‘Drunken Sailors’. Vronskaya turns our expectation of ‘Still Life’ completely on its head with characteristic humour, irony and skill.

‘Mid Winter’ (Oil on Board) captures perfectly the temperature of the season with a composition of empty jars. The simplicity and clarity of this work is like inhaling on the coldest of winter mornings. The crisp lines of the jars, play of light and subtlety of the artist’s palette transform the arrangement of objects into the suggestion of something far greater.

They evoke a state of mind and an attitude to the world, an act of distillation which is at the heart of all great painting. Vronskaya does not just make us look, she makes us see. The altar, threshold and everyday objects are subjects transformed by the manner of depiction and the artist’s intent. Light is not a physical presence in these works but part of their essential humanity in a perfect fusion of technique and ideas.

The formal qualities of Vronskaya’s compositions being consistently refined are richly in evidence here. ‘Dead End’, ‘Behaved Nuns’ and ‘White Wedding’ are good examples, pushing perspective and pyramid composition into emotive territory. Absolute understanding of these pictorial devices allows the artist to push them further and redefine our expectations of painting as an art form.

‘Prayer Position’, a larger scale oil on canvas, introduces stronger elements of colour in an intriguing merger of realism and abstraction. The tension between these two painterly techniques and the introduction of more dominant areas of colour are an interesting development in the artist’s work.

The abstract handling of the ground and overlap of different visual fields create a feeling of parallel realities. We are not looking at a literal pose but an attitude or state of being that has the power to transform. Like the altar works this painting is a platform for contemplation and transformation.

The acidic yellow and myriad of greys accented with crimson, umber and ochre create a feeling of struggle at the heart of this human still life. As with all of Vronskaya’s work colour is never used simply to attract the eye or in a decorative way, it is integral to the grand design, the integrity of the work and the composition as a whole.

This show is a great testimony to the art of painting and its resonance as a vital, expressive, challenging and relevant form of communication. Though many other art forms dominate the contemporary art world few actually demonstrate equality of technique and ideas that are in evidence here.

© Georgina Coburn, 2008.

'Iconastas'
I think the defining image of this show are three works hung at the far end of Kilmorack Gallery, a triptych of images which although they are separate, hang together to give the viewer a blinding and breathtaking view of Eugenia Vronskaya’s talent and insight.

The first is a large self ‘Portrait in a Red Jacket’ (oil on canvas) that vibrates with electric green brushwork in the background in striking contrast with the central figure. It holds your gaze and draws you in repeatedly, the under-sketch of queenly robes enveloping the figure. It is a stunning portrait, full of tenacity, assurance in its handling of paint, and movingly human in the liquid blue of the artist’s quizzical eyes.

The centrepiece of the exhibition is ‘Iconostas’ a collection of sixty portrait sketches hung together in a way that combines the experience of each person as one piece of work yet captures the character and energy of each individual sitter, many of whom are local artists.

Vronskaya explains: “Identity is a unique combination of common elements. We don’t learn anything new – we just explore the endless combination of the same. We all experience love, death, rejection, loss, spirituality and disappointment in our lives. Each Face speaks its own story; each face says the same thing.” There is a sense of a community being brought together in the same way that the church building they hang in would have functioned as a focal point. These images, too, invite the viewer back to contemplate each face, each element that is part of the whole.

‘Portrait of the Artist as a Man’ (oil on canvas) combines pink flesh with greenish shadow, defining the lithe body of a young man against a pure white background. It is a potent creative statement by a woman at the height of her powers as an artist.

For me it represents a kind of creativity that has nothing to do with gender and defies the normal judgement we would apply to a female nude or to notions of feminine creativity through the body. It is a contradiction which turns the world on its head as great art should.

Despite the strength and assurance of her art, Vronskaya also displays – in work such as ‘Surrender’ – the game of art, a chase that never ends. In this still life a white flag hovers over tubes of paint and the presence of a child’s toy. The artist’s characteristic cool palette of greys and green with accents of red plays with the truth behind all artists’ practice, that you never quite reach the vision and surrender the battle until the next time you pick up a brush.

Vronskaya displays in her still lives unexpected edginess, both beauty and menace. It is hard to imagine anyone else rendering a pile of empty jars beautiful, but she succeeds in doing just that in works such as ‘Yellow Door Jars’ and ‘Winter Jars’. In ‘Cornered’ the cramped overlap of the space against the glistening of glass surfaces makes the pile beautifully claustrophobic.

‘Eternal Couple’, depicting dead pheasants hung against the cool blue of a window, with children’s toys on the window sill, is typical of the juxtaposition of objects which makes the act of seeing the familiar so unsettling. ‘Death Mask and Little People’, with the buzz of green hues and brushstrokes outside seen through the menacing hollow of the mouth and window, are instantly threatening.

‘Window’ also displays these characteristics to great effect. The blur of the world outside in grey and green brushstrokes gives way to an acidic yellow sky with black skeletal trees on the horizon stripped by the dampness of winter. A grey teddy hangs upside down, glass jars perched precariously with a face mask and child’s toys on the window sill.

Even with the traditional safe genre of painting still life, the artist never lets the audience get too comfortable. This is one of her most admirable qualities.

Charcoal drawings displayed in the vestry such as ‘Study III’ and ‘Study I’ are superb examples of the sensitivity wrought by study of the human figure, a foundation for work such as ‘Northern Angel’ and ‘Back and Toes’ (both oils on canvas). These two pieces are also highlights of the exhibition in terms of their depiction of the figure.

‘Northern Angel’ is a beautifully accomplished study of humanity. The figure is subtlety lit, head bowed, shoulders drawn into the frailty of human flesh with only the barest suggestion of wings against the dark back ground.

‘Back and Toes’ would seem unfinished, and yet it has all the visual information we need to complete the picture. In this and in ‘Missing Mum’, Vronskaya manages to achieve what many artists would envy, the freshness, and energy of a sketch with the permanence of painting.

This is an outstanding solo show which should not be missed.

© Georgina Coburn, 2006

War and peace (one day in a life of....)

I wake up to the Morning Massacre, usually a few minutes before the irritating sound of the alarm. The dog is whining downstairs, ready to be taken out. My mind clicks slowly, with a jolt... restoring all the 'files' of what there is and whatÕs to be done, when, what time, how much..etc.....At that moment i know that by the end of it i will step into the studio, my hide-away-place, my sanity and madness, my refuge, my war and peace.

So it begins: the little one does not want to go to shcool..I'm not well, my knee is hurting. .... Breakfast, bags, lunch boxes, uniforms, swimming kit, P.E., dog food.. I knock off a few little lego men, miraculously appeared on my way, with their little brave faces, guns and swords, as i rush upstairs- downstairs to produce all the goods are needed for them to finally, happily be pushed through the door. Then , I must quickly close down this 'file', in order to enter the one i long to be in all the time, but so hard to enter, to retreat to this far remote space, where i feel a stranger to the rest of the world , yet very at home(with myself. There, I'm meeting my other self, before it can disappear.

Usually I walk into my studio, which is just a big shed in my garden, my head full of stuff - the phone calls i need to make,bills banks, every single corner of my house shouts at me.to be sorted.. every pocket of my trousers stuffed with lists of things to do. I know , in order to enter this dimension i haveto leave all of it behind, it's like in all the Holy Books it says : before you can enter the Garden, you have to stripped of all your worldly possessions and all the jazz of this life you ought to leave behind. So, each time i have to discover how to trust myself, to trust my instincts, without knowing how it will turn out. It might sound easy, until you try it. I find it the most difficult thing in the world.The compromises are there, like hungry vultures, waiting for you to falter, and before you know, the desire to conform, to please, to be accepted and off you are tumbling down the slope away from yourself

And so it begins...everything and everyone is in my studio, my thoughts, desires, fears, ideas, friends, enemies, artwold, the important and banal... all are there, and as i start one by one, will leave, and then it's only me and the canvas and then on a good day even i leave.

What happens is a continual surrender of 'himself' as he is at the moment, to something which is more valuable. The process of continual self sacrifice a continual extinction of personality T.S. Eliot

I never know what makes it a good day... When the right colour goes on the right place and the images appear without a single doubt of their rightness, without needing to be obliterated or moved, the painting flows so powerfully with such strength that i almost feel it's nothing to do with me. I love those days as i feel lifted off the ground at least a couple of inches and on the days like this i never have a problem to walk away from the studio. It's like a healthy, happy relationship, itÕs easy to move on... But it's so hard to move on from an unhealthy disruptive relationship. you constantly want to go back to put it right. But one is not possible without the other.I think that what the Russian writer Babel said in one of his speeches that Communist Party gave us everything except one thing, the obility to write badly.

I never set up my 'still-lifes'. They are just there, appear by themseves, by the very act of life.. Children just leave around their lego constructions; in the bathroom on top of all my creams the little soldiers on their flying equipment, transformed by the streaming light from the window, creating this most unlikely partnership; yet to me it tallks, the strange beauty of the incompatible. You can never set it up, if i try it does not work.. it looks false and lacks life

I got stuck on these domestic-studio scenes; and the more i do the more mysterious these objects become. The visible world is abstract and mysterious enough, i donÕt think one needs to depart from it to think about art. I had this immense urge to paint all those things around me; my childrens room with the faint light seeping through, brave litle soldiers in the world of jars and glass, the Lego flying duck, landed on the window sill of my studio. My kitchen sink is a platform for all sorts of things to appear and transformations to take place on a daily basis. I love doing the objects which are part of our dailydayness:they contain our energies, the imprints of our interactions with it they become sort of alive and members of our family.

It's very interesting What sets a desire to paint.: it could be anything- things , thoughts, memories, objects, but not the obvious, nothing to do with painting. I live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, but i am not attracted to paint landscape as such. When i look at it .. i love it and i enjoy being there , yet it does not bring this other in me, when i feel i have to reach for the paints. But when i look at the configuration, created by a jumble of the clutter of mugs and jars crowded on the kitchen sink, transformed by the light streaming through the window.. it sets me off. It's the light, the form, the space, the mystery in it.. the oddness and strangeness echoes something in me(whatever it is) and sets me to paint.

I dislike when people try to talk about the meaning of the painting. I don't think it exists on the level of our logic. I do think it has a meaning, but it does not come in the form of words. It's like the painting is not on the surface, but on the plane which is imagined. It moves in the mind. It's not there physically at all.It's an illusion, a peice of magic, so what you see is not what you see.

Before I know it, my time is up. Brushes down, and, at a snap of the fingers, i have to wake up into this world with suppers and sinks, like a hypnotist wakes up his patient, on the count of three...another War to fight.. between me in the studio, and me as a cuddly soft and steady mum.. two worlds of different logics, two worlds unable to exist one without the other.

I think that the wold is created in opposites:day and night, man and woman, light and darkness, war and peace...The process of the creation is also the process of t destruction.

My boys are well into their creative Lego war.. everything turns into guns, bombs, rockets. Our life here is a constant battle field. Nothing could be moved or oltered...Mum don't touch it we have not finished our war.. i know what they mean.. so i don't.

I look at the bigger picture of the world.. big boys playing their war, except their bombs are real and the lives they take are real too.

So back to peanut butter sandwichers, apples and maybe some special treat to ease my guilt of being too much with my paintings.. We are racing to the swiming pool, to the riding lessons, music, Ready Steady Go...Back in the house as i boil some pasta, i make sketches in my memory of amazing installations which are appearing all around me and would be gone by tomorrow. The time between 3.30 and 8. 30 does not belong to me

Another battle getting children into their beds. .eventually i'm winning this one with inevitable casualties.. the final ' I'm scared in my bed.. can i have my hot water bottle.. can i have a drink,' - at last i'm downstairs. As i'm wearily unpacking the school bags , a little heart falls out of one of them, It says:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A portrait of national importance which ought to be on national display, Vronskaya’s magnificent painting of the fashion designer and couturier Sandra Murray conveys the stature and dignity of the sitter, not merely in her costume but in her presence. Painted on a pure white ground the elegant line of Murray’s hat and gown, a silhouette of darkened purple, presents an image akin to an earlier century of society portraits or high contrast black and white fashion photography.

It is however the strength, determination and humanity in Murray’s face which provides a counterfoil to the artifice of dress and of portraiture. Like the subject’s adornment, the portrait conceals and reveals the sitter and the artist. Intriguingly within the contours of the lower half of the gown the profile of John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Madame X sits beautifully as a seamless element of the design.

The designer’s hand is placed protectively in relation to the figure as if it were a child, the head of Sargent’s muse in a womblike position. It is an image of an extraordinary woman and of creativity which reveals the inner beauty of the subject beyond a world of appearances.

The Morning After illustrates the way in which Vronskaya invests still life with human presence. The window view with its arrangement of glass objects spaced apart from each other are rendered in greys, emerald green, purple and lemon yellow, the shadows of glass in green clashing with blue in the foreground. Light in this work sharpens the edges of the glass and fine vertical white marks feel as though they have been cut into the surface of the painting. There is a sense of stillness and isolation in this work with the river beyond bearing silent witness to the interior scene.

The dynamic of human life within the still life, in light and in shadow can also be seen in Before The Storm. The horizontal composition and placement of objects upon the window sill is divided by shifting light, effectively halved midpoint with a figurative statue. The cool blue and green with accents of red in the comical fake teeth and pink interior of the conch shell create tension, conflicting temperatures of hue which are subtly echoed in the landscape outside. The gathered fabric to the left of the painting feels like a cloud unfurling, contributing to the emotional unease of the image. The atmosphere of the scene stands on a knife edge and the viewer is held in anticipation by inanimate objects and elements of colour and form.

There are many smaller works which also beg closer inspection such as the beautifully fluid self portrait I meet My Shadow in The Deepening, the dialogue of anthropomorphised objects in Three Kings, Your gift from the sea, reminiscent of the dreamlike pastels and watercolours of Odilon Redon, and the deeply personal, softly textured and symbolically loaded The Expectation of a Miracle.

The diversity of paint handling and varying scale of work is both fractious and essential in this show, displaying a range of enquiry that will shape and distil future work. A series of images in particular that beg further exploration are a suite of female nudes on canvas and slate – Trusting the river, a semi immersion of the figure in the natural element of water.

A river runs through is a significant milestone in the artist’s life and oeuvre, displaying her command of the medium of oils and sustained commitment to the art of painting. The finest works in this exhibition convey extraordinary intensity and emotional depth, created by an artist possessing a deep understanding of pictorial elements and of the human condition.

© Georgina Coburn, 2011