Name: Elena Volkova
Occupation: Artist
Residence: Baltimore
What I Want to Tell You About This Piece: It’s the biggest print I’ve ever done. It uses more white space than I’ve ever used before. It stands out in that it suggests infinity more than any other work. The image is printed at the very bottom of a 30-foot-tall piece of paper, and the image itself is only three or four feet high. It fades into white, suggesting infinite space.
The original photo was taken out the window of an airplane, which is not an original idea by any stretch of the imagination. I think anybody who flies and sees the beauty of the sky from the airplane window feels obligated to take photos of the clouds. I was thinking about how I could speak of landscapes in terms of infinity, and how it suggests vastness.
I’ve studied Chinese painting, and how negative space is used in Chinese painting. The idea is that the negative space really becomes a positive space. It suggests Tao; something beyond our comprehension, and yet a significant part of us as human beings.
I want the viewer to be aware of the interchange between negative and positive space, and to think about how negative space becomes the actual subject of the work, and how it not only frames the cloud but how it actually is framed by the cloud and the paper. I don’t frame my work because I want the viewer to experience it within the context of the gallery. It’s not a picture on the wall surrounded by a frame. The whole gallery becomes animated with these pieces, and really the wall is the actual frame that frames the work.
If you go
“Elena Volkova: Airscapes”
Where: Flashpoint, 916 G St. NW
When: Through Dec. 20
Info: Free, www.flashpointdc.org
