An autumnal treat: Yelena Popova's Made Ground
I’ve been staring at Yelena Popova’s paintings via a screen, and I am pulled in, warmed by the earthy tones which spill and spiral across the canvas.
The days are closing in on me too early already, and even after twenty-six rounds, I’m still surprised when the seasons move from summer to autumn. It’s the starkest and the most depressing of transitions, and I won’t let you tell me otherwise.
I’ve been staring at Yelena Popova’s paintings via a screen, and I am pulled in, warmed by the earthy tones which spill and spiral across the canvas. I expect the paint to start swelling and warping like an Op Art piece, but they don’t, and I’m grateful for that; instead they offer a viewing experience which is grounding and prolonged. For Popova, her paintings made with an autumnal palette of rich pinks, reds and browns, resemble ‘meat, blood, red wine and cocoa’ for the artist. Her latest exhibition, titled Made Ground, will be a sight to offset looming Seasonal Affective Disorder.
I spoke to the artist about the comfort her paintings brought me, and she explained how their evocative quality is down to ‘the beauty of natural pigment’. Borrowing from medieval painting recipes, Popova approaches her painting process through an eco-conscious lens. She refuses to use petrochemical products, instead opting to make her own paint from materials gathered from natural landscapes. For this series of new work going on display at CAMPLE LINE in South West Scotland, she collected soil and rock local to the gallery.
A magpie for found objects, Popova has inventively installed her paintings for over ten years. This emerged from her studies at Royal College of Art in which she interrogated the relevance of painting as a medium in contemporary culture. At CAMPLE LINE she has used the most perfect pronged tree branch to display a circular painting. She tells me that her reason to do is to emphasise the fact that ‘a painting is an object, rather than an image, in the material world.’ Popova adds: ‘I try to push the boundaries of installation’. Consequently, not only are her installations visually striking, but the viewers’ experience becomes more interactive as they weave around paintings-turned-objects in the exhibition space.
Raised in the USSR, Popova finds inspiration from the female pioneers of Russian Constructivism - Lyubov Popova and Varvara Stepanova in particular. Fascinated by their leap ‘from painting to pattern making’, Popova tests similar grounds in her work. For Made Ground, she has produced a textile work centring a Spruce tree. Going against the grain of mass production of textile goods, Popova wants to protect sustainable traditions; the piece has been hand-knitted by Irina Miloserdova using a variation of Sanquhar Knit, a distinctive geometric knitting pattern that originated in 17th century Dumfries and Galloway.
While Popova’s works aren’t overtly about the deteriorating environment, her political messaging is more subtle; on an aesthetic level, she communicates ideas about sustainable artistic practices which I’ve never considered before. Made Ground will be illuminating, and I can’t wait to see it in the flesh.