Loading Events

« All Events

  • This event has passed.

24 Hours: (heart) Breaking News- an installation by Olga Yukhno

May 2, 2019 @ 10:00 am - June 28, 2019 @ 6:00 pm

Tapp’s Arts Center is excited to announce the opening of 24 Hours: (heart) Breaking News, a solo exhibition featuring new work by Olga Yukhno. Join us for the opening reception, May 2, 2019 from 6pm to 10pm, and visit any time from May 2nd through June 28th. Tapp’s exhibitions are free to visit, and open to the public 10am to 6pm, Tuesday through Saturday. 


About 24 Hours: (heart) Breaking News:
24 Hours: (heart) Breaking News is an installation of new sculptures that interpret the media coverage that shaped Olga’s perception over the past year. Each vignette will address a separate theme or topic in humanitarian, social, and political issues that confront contemporary society.

Yukhno states, “We are surrounded, bombarded, and enveloped by news in so many different ways in our lives. it is no wonder that so many people find it easier to turn a blind eye to the awful parts. I find myself affected by the news so often, and this work is my way of confronting the feeling of helplessness, the feeling that your opinion does not matter, and that there’s nothing you can do. This is my way of showing those suffering that they’re not alone.

These pieces are inspired by stories of some of the most tense environments, and the stories that inspire me, and that I am most passionate about. I find myself so often terrified and appalled by how easily those who wield great power are able to manipulate the lives of others, leaving an irreversible impact on whole future generations across the world.

The most pervasive issue I faced when analyzing all these different stories was the idea of ‘otherness’. We build walls around ourselves and our small ‘tribes’, physically, emotionally, and psychologically. This creates a feeling that everyone outside of that wall is an ‘other’. This is the result of grooming from the media and politics, and is reaching to countries throughout the world. I have traveled the world, and experienced so much of what other cultures have to offer, and I believe that we have so much more in common than we have that divides us, we just need to see it. We need to build more bridges than walls.

Most of all, I am so inspired by the strength and resilience of the human spirit, and our ability to cope with the worst situations imaginable. Only by facing these problems head on, and not looking away when things are too harsh to handle can we hope to find meaning between the lines.”


About the Artist:
Olga Yukhno is an artist originally from Pyatigorsk, Russia. It was in Russia her passion for art began. Inspired by the culture of her home country, she started by working with batiques, stained glass and enameling. She studied under world renowned enamelist, Nikolai Vdovkin for several years to hone her skills, before moving to the United States in 2008.

In the US, she no longer had access to the tools needed to continue with her enameling, and quickly started expanding into any and every new medium she could get access to. What she fell in love with was ceramic sculpting. It allowed her to experiment, and fuse together old-world artistry with her skills and abilities across a wide variety of art forms to create totally new and unique mixed media pieces.

Over the years, Olga has traveled to over 40 countries across Eastern and Western Europe, Asia and the Americas, and visited museums ranging from the world famous Louvre in France, to the smallest unnamed art displays in towns and villages few outsiders have ever seen. It is in these travels she gets the most inspiration, drawing on the uniqueness and culture of every new place she visits, she finds ways to incorporate those cultural nuances into each new piece she makes. The colors, shapes, and ideas of everything from tribal masks to modern street art can be seen woven into her work. She loves juxtaposition in her art, old and new, lustrous and weathered, and it’s in these contrasts she finds beauty.

As a member of the International Federation of Artists, Olga has taken part in many shows and exhibitions in both Russia and the United States. In 2006, she won the International Design Contest for Traditional National Costumes in Moscow. She has been featured in multiple solo exhibitions, including at the Bascom Art Center, and several galleries in North and South Carolina. She has completed courses and taught at the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina, and has studied under many acclaimed sculptors in the South East.

Currently her work is a mixture of three dimensional ceramic and mixed media wall pieces, figurative sculpture, and larger scale installation works. The process used to create many of her signature looks is achieved by hand pressing each individual impression into the clay using small custom made metal tools. She hand makes all of these tools herself out of repurposed architectural metal scraps. She also loves to incorporate found objects, as well as utilize techniques from other art forms she’s studied and practiced, such as weaving, encaustic and metal working. The result of this process, different incorporated elements and techniques are what create her unique and visually interesting personal style. Her degree in psychology shapes the ideas and concepts behind many of her pieces, with the intention that observing her work encourages the viewer to think more about what they’re seeing, and the emotions it evokes.


Tapp’s Arts Center is giant artistic laboratory focused on community engagement. We encourage artistic agency through exhibitions, cultural events, workshops, classes, and studios to help Columbia create, learn and grow.
 

Details

Start:
May 2, 2019 @ 10:00 am
End:
June 28, 2019 @ 6:00 pm
Event Category: