olasyuk_a

This year I felt an enormous deepness of fear, freedom, love, confidence, pride, and sadness.
And all it within me - that’s the finest understanding. No matter what, there is just Me.

Besides.
What I learned this year is there is a thin line between politeness and ignorance, and that empathy is something that everyone talks about but not many are practicing.

Happy Holidays.

Drink more water, Walk more, Love more, and Practice empathy. Be grateful.

Love,
Alena

New Vyshivanka
22,5x22,5cm / Chinese ink on paper

One more Vyshivanka
22,5x22,5cm
Chinese ink on paper
(Will do prints of it soon!)

My Art and Prints (that are help Ukraine) are in space by .sh

I feel like I have to join the discussion of my dear peers about … AI and art.
I knew you wondered for a long time, wanting to ask “ Alena, so what do you think? will Ai replace already barely surviving artists and makes their lives even more miserable?
Thank you for asking.
No, I don’t think anyone but artists can make their life worse.
And No, I don’t think AI would replace any artists. Even me…
Even though my art could be replaced by not just AI but an old Paint program on an old Windows PC. Yep, I’m aware that I draw just Lines.

I do follow the news on Tech and Art and am amazed by seeing the art by Ai, and how amazing it is. It is great, and it gonna be even greater, and more conceptual. For sure. Love seeing it.
I truly believe that there will be great works by Ai that will sell for tons of money and less of them, similar to NFT, and maybe they even could be exhibited in the galleries and so on.

But, here are two main points why it won’t replace artists:
1| Art is about story. Of an artist and an artwork, all together. Simply it's Branding, where the story around the product and the product itself matters. I know it because I hear what people say about my work and my journey, and have endless hours spent drawings lines. Even though an algorithm could make those lines in a second recreating the works that took me all those 10 years. But. We love stories of humans. Humans are limited in their abilities and how they overcome those limitations. We just love stories. We love the fact that Dali was eccentric, and Van Goth was poor… And I know you love seeing unlimited ways how I do lines for hours and hours every day.
AI will have amazing stories as well, as due to its limitations it can create some cool and very unexpected things, but even then it won’t be competitive to the level to erase artists.

Continue in pics 🖼👆🏻

Drawing lines, like everything in this life I started with basics which were overthinking finding complex contexts and meanings. Referring to life, dualities, and all kinds of explanations. As more I dig as more meanings I could find.
I believe it happened with everything, once you started, you think this is something important.
Filling-in meanings into the openness of new things.
Maybe it's the need to explain to yourself and others the importance of your choice. Because the world is filled with explanations. With the complexity of meanings.
You fill in the experience and concepts as a heavy liquid that pours into every movement of yourself, creating experiences, creating actions.
Just after some time, the more you fill in these concepts as more you realize that the most important thing lies in simplicity. As those explanations become too heavy, like a backpack that you filled with unnecessary things and step by step start to take things away from it, leaving the most important, enjoying the lightness and emptiness of it and understanding the essence of the only few things you left. You felt light and fulfilled.
Meaning by meaning you lifting the weight of your experience. And then realizing that there is no meaning but just pure existence in every step that you do. There is a pure existence and more fulfillment in the easiest things that are not overwhelmed by words, concepts, or reasons.
Day-to-day routine.
Day-to-day repetition.
Drawing lines like breezing.
Going to the same place over and over and over appreciating its stability and availability.
I am mastering just one action as in the best Japanese traditions.

To do art is just the state of being. Without over-explaining. Day-to-day natural existence that day to day takes a little bit of a different shape even though it is very similar to each other.

Just drawing lines.

No name
4 artworks
23x31cm each
chinese ink on paper
2022

One more with no name…
23x31cm / Chinese ink on paper

Wanted to draw something pretty.
15x15cm / Chinese ink on Paper / 2022

Abstract manipulation research
16 artworks works
15x15cm each
Chinese ink on paper
2022

Abstract manipulation research
13, 14, 15, 16
15x15cm
Chinese ink on paper

Abstract manipulation research
9, 10, 11, 12
15x15cm
Chinese ink on paper

Abstract manipulation research
5, 6, 7, 8
15x15cm
Chinese ink on paper

Abstract manipulation research
1, 2, 3, 4
15x15cm
Chinese ink on paper

25 landscapes of Ukraine (on pic 24).
14x14cm each
Just 1 left, available.

25 (here 24) Ukrainian landscapes.
14x14cm each.
And just 1 left, available.

in Madrid
📸by

‘How I Feel’
Chinese ink on paper
12 artworks, 31x31cm each)
2022

Nationality, as the topic I thought, was over-exaggerated by me and my privilege of having time, and money (compared to some very very poor people..) so I could think about such things and complain. I could complain about why the art world still defines artists by nationality and reject some. That is what I faced in China when I could easily be dismissed just by being from Ukraine and had fewer opportunities, and after 12 years of life in China, I was not accounted for in exhibitions for young Chinese artists. I thought I exaggerating as, after the beginning of the war, everything in my mind become black and white, and such complaints and discussions were rather another sign of privilege, while in the real world all that need to be done is survive.
Now, when my mind a little bit settled down in the new reality, even rested a little bit I recognized that my complaint about nationality in the art world was not such a small deal, but actually, a global issue.
As, obviously (which somehow I totally ignored as I couldn't put my mind to the ridiculousness of it), the war in Ukraine is also about nationality. As someone decided that Ukrainians should not just be ignored in one exhibition but not to live on this planet! Here in the 21st century (It was said in russian newspapers).
Identity and nationality are important aspects of our lives, somehow, and apparently, the art world was just projecting the global density by neglecting some nationalities to others.
Naive as I am, thinking that we live in the 21st century, which means, we respect each other, we focus on development in every industry, we have science and technology, we are global…and therefore we could push boundaries and question more topics of identity...
And yet, I forgot that we are not.

continue in pics 🖼🎠

Continues Ukrainian Landscapes Research…. / each is 14x14cm / Chinese ink on paper

How I Feel N4
Chinese ink on paper
31x31cm