IN VOLO
Text by Irina Chernyak
Olga Teksheva is an installation artist, sculptor and visual artist.
From Moscow, Russia, based in Rome (Italy).
@teksheva represented by @pavartroma curator Velia Littera
The dragonfly
Can’t quite land
On that blade of grass
Matsuo Basho (1644 – 1694)
"Beautiful Flowers Don't Fit In With Contemporary Art"
"Dragonfly" series, "Birth of Shape", 2019, 120 x 170 cm
Hand weaving, beading, hand embroidery on textile collage
"Beautiful Flowers Don't Fit In With Contemporary Art"
Olga Teksheva caught the attention of the art world three years ago thanks to her first solo show at Villa Pamphili in Rome. Since then she has never betrayed her passion for nature, taking inspiration in hues, forms and textures of natural objects. In 2017 she was enchanted by the underwater world. The artist was searching for visionary shades of multicoloured fish and for optical illusions created by masses of ocean water, projected on real world objects, especially architectural constructions. In that period she used to work a lot with artworks on paper, dedicating herself to tiniest details, with touches of gel pen that looked like embroidery stitches, with appliqués and three-dimensional elements. Her installation “Once Upon a Time There Was a Fish Sitting on a Tree'' was the central point of the show. So enormous it needed a room apart just for itself. Sculptural volumes of crocheted trees were made of fibers of thousand colours and shades. Three years later, with a new solo show by Olga Teksheva curated by Velia Littera at Pavart Roma, it becomes obvious that that first experiment of sculpting with fibers and textiles was of utmost importance, and that in those three years her vision, her artistic approach to artisanal techniques have got together to create a language of her own: fragile, tender, sincere and truly original.
"Beautiful Flowers Don't Fit In With Contemporary Art"
"Dreamcatcher: Wabi V", 2020, 65 x 55 cm
Felt base, hand weaving, hand embroidery on textile collage, melted chiffon, found objects
"Beautiful Flowers Don't Fit In With Contemporary Art"
The show “In volo” (“In Flight”) at Pavart Roma brings ahead the discourse of textile art, of fiber sculptures, of drawing with the finest of threads, of finding a new way to apply haute couture embroidery. There are three series developed by Olga for this show: “Material / Immaterial'' (2019 – 2020), “Dragonfly” (2019 – 2020) and “Dreamcatcher” (2020), and all three of them are dedicated to dreams, to colours, to a free flight of a dragonfly. The wings of dragonflies and butterflies are moving in instance of escape from cobwebs of hand-weaved sophisticated nets on large-format panels of chiffon and organza elaborated with three-dimensional elements (each panel is about 120/130 cm wide and 250/300 cm tall). These pieces are born from graphic research of natural objects, executed with much precision and love, at almost “molecular” level. The marks are executed on paper with sharpest pencils or with the finest gel pen. Usually the artist studies the smallest details of a natural object. But the artworks on show in which we can see the results of those studies are large format pieces. The measurements make these tiny details something impressive and exaggerated, letting the eye to perceive clearly all those lines and forms that usually one can see only in his or her imagination.
"Beautiful Flowers Don't Fit In With Contemporary Art"
"Dragonfly" series, "Birth of Flight", 2020, 70 x 130 cm
Crocheted metal wire and fishing thread, hand embroidery on textile collage
"Beautiful Flowers Don't Fit In With Contemporary Art"
In every element of these panels there are materials transformed by the artist’s touch. Transparent fabrics form layers and layers of surface, producing multi colour shades that might change according to the light conditions. Here and there one can see dried leaves, pieces of tree bark, small branches. Embroidery holds everything together, it makes every detail appear three-dimensional and full of life, it imitates hatching when the artist is drawing or it becomes a well-defined line with clearly graphic mood. For example, the patterns of dragonflies’ wings or their elongated bodies. Threads and chiffon or jute “ribbons” are free to fly around or under the art pieces, they fold over on themselves or are “frosted” in a movement that negates the laws of gravity. Every net is hand-weaved in a unique technique that permits to avoid monotonous effects or those too precise, and brings to life the movement of horizontal and vertical threads.
Transparency assumes a special meaning, not only as a symbol of weightlessness but also as a possibility to overcome the surface, the materials that form the base of an artwork. The wall begins to interact with a piece, almost becomes a part of it with the play of shadows. Even the space of the gallery interacts with these artworks, giving them a monumental and solemn touch, even though the materials of these wall sculptures seem so fragile and light-weight, seem to fly without any limitation.
It’s a visual feast of colours and textures. The attention of a viewer is drawn to vertical and horizontal lines of the fibers, of the ribbons, of the fringes that stress the idea of dragonflies’ flight. They fly towards the sky confirming their reputation of the fastest insects. Or else they stop themselves with their wings wide open, a kind of totem-like object as if they still were venerated by Japanese samurai. It seems that the wings are trembling ready to make a trick that only dragonflies can do, like flying with their rear end forward, something that other insects are not capable of. The wings become a net of pulsating lines creating the effect of precious textile mosaics made of thousands of embroidery stitches that run in all the directions. They are “realistic” but in a fancy way, as if they were never finished, as everything that our eyes don’t make in time to perceive in a clear way. The transparent extreme points of the wings are ready to catch the wind that enters in gallery space…they seem alive.
"Dreamcatcher" series, "Branches of Memory", 2020, 80 x 137 cm
Crocheted sailor ropes, hand embroidery, hand weaving, found objects
"Beautiful Flowers Don't Fit In With Contemporary Art"
"Dragonfly" series, "Birth of Joy", 2020, 78 x 220 cm
Hand embroidery on textile collage, hand weaving, wooden support
"Dreamcatcher: Wabi III", 2020, 57 x 68 cm
Felt base, hand embroidery on textile collage, hand weaving, melted chiffon, found object
6. The artist with her site-specific installation "Beautiful Flowers Don't Fit In With Contemporary Art"
A feeling of fragile beauty that won’t last for long is very important for the artworks of Olga Teksheva, it makes us remember our own precious and personal moments. The pieces of vintage fabrics and sophisticated stitches are trying to hold together the “textile” of here and now that is in eternal movement. The sensible mending of our moments of happiness. The cobwebs with their precious rain drops that try to hold on to the blades of grass in their unstoppable will towards the sun. The artworks of Olga Teksheva manage to give shape to this subtle feeling of an oasis of paradise in fragile equilibrium that might dissolve itself in any moment…and this makes it even more precious.
Dragonflies fly in circles,
Moving their emerald wings.
The flowers of Southern lotus
Hug each other on their entangled stems.
Du Fu (712 – 770)