PORTFOLIO
Victoria Dael’s work provides us with an example of how the culture and art of different eras are reinterpreted and preserved for generations. History is undergoing changes, and today's world is difficult to compare with the world of antiquity, the Renaissance, or the beginning of the twentieth century. But this is only a superficial sensation distorted by everyday life. Having adjusted our view on the perception of the deep foundations of our being, we will understand that there is something permanent, not subject to time, even if on the surface we see only ancient fragments and ruins. But they can tell us all the more expressively and, oddly enough, more completely, about the whole, native and familiar world, which only lurks behind time, while modern passions are raging on stage. In Victoria’s paintings, we touch this world with solid, eternal foundations. We all come from there. And even if we do not understand the history of art and do not know to which era the paintings and sculptures referenced by the artist belong, this does not detract from the impression that her works have on us.
Paintings from a new series "Revealing Spain", 2022-23
New series of paintings dedicated to Spain, where the artist began to live after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The paintings of the Revealing Spain cycle reflect artist’s impulse to discover a terra incognita of a sort, her first steps towards the unknown and her fresh newcomer perspective. Perhaps this is why the protagonists of her paintings are not completely exposed. They are partially covered as something enigmatic and concealed to her. Something still hidden, yet very promising.
Paintings from the series "Presentiment", 2022
This series of paintings was created in early 2022 in January-February on the eve of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I started working in a new studio and just caught a new breath, a new performance. But the rolling disturbing news seems to be reflected in these large canvases, in black and white splashes and strokes of paint. A few months later, many of the compositions of the paintings evoke sad memories of the siren, explosions and the whistle of bullets. But the same paintings do not let you fall into complete depression, the white fields, the spaces of the canvas speak of hope and freedom.
Paintings from the series "Silence of Meanings", 2021
This series of paintings was created in 2021. In the year that struck the whole world with a disease, she took relatives and friends, took away meaning and reason. These paintings were born as a reflection on the ongoing global event of Covid-19, experiencing one's own illness and an attempt to speak in the purest way, from an attempt to capture silence and meaning.
The dazzling white, voluminous surfaces of the paintings are inspired by the art of ancient Greece, the work of Latin American artists, Italian neo-realists in cinema. In these living folds, space materializes and such a silence of meaning shines through, which is most valuable in any kind of art and no less important in the modern world of information load.
Paintings from the series "Terracotta Frescoes", 2020-2019
These paintings are dedicated to the dialogue of the culture of the past, the search for new plastic solutions and experiments with non-objective painting, referring to the visual arts of Pompeii.
Paintings from the series "We Were Here" 2017-2018
Reflections on the dramatic confrontation between culture and barbarism were displayed in the series "We Were Here". The painting technique of this series is in tune with the classic al fresco - as if the white chalk of the wall paintings appears through modern oil, sending the viewer to museums or the majestic ruins of the past.
If you take part in the creative process, you cannot refrain from being a philosopher, from questioning yourself. Art is a way of exploring relationships. I explore relationships with society, with myself, with art itself. The contemporary artist performs self-analysis, which is now an integral part of the creative process. The model whereby an artist sits in an attic or a basement and invents something is very archaic. Today the self-identification of the artist takes place publicly.
In these notes, I formulate answers to questions which I confront ever more often in the process of the creation of works and in communication with audiences. Questions about painting and its role in contemporary art, about the main subject of creation, about the fate of the artist in their world. In any case, it’s completely clear that the aim of any art is to explain oneself and one’s surroundings, to explain for what one lives, and the point of one’s existence.
During my years of studying, and also later, I worked with live models, as did artists throughout the centuries. The creator is located in one physical space with the live personified subject, in one energetic field, in which inescapably arise a multitude of visible and invisible connections. They may be a help or a hindrance to work. Nowadays, the basis of my improvisation is paintings and sculptures – witnesses of that space which were forever hidden from us under the thickness of time. These two experiences allow me to affirm not only completely various methods of work, but also various mental burdens of consciousness. Firstly, moving from a specific personified subject to, possibly, a future true oblivion; secondly, from the absolutely forgotten to its resurrection in a single space of art.
Once artists painted for the Vatican and for kings, and did not focus on anything else. Nobody denied or doubted their paintings or drawings. I do not engage in art, but in clarifying my personal relationships with culture. An artist must express themselves, and find their ‘I’. This is a doctrine of many centuries, but particularly a 20th Century one. The honest business of the artist is to offer their images and versions of survival at the level of their intuition. Life in art is very long, longer than human life.
Paintings from the series "Time of Witnesses", 2016
This series of paintings "The Time of the Witnesses", which was influenced by the events in Aleppo and Palmyra and the death of the cultural heritage of one of the Eastern civilizations. The artistic reception of paintings, built on replicas of the great images of sculpture and painting, creates a modern space, insisting that history does not move linearly, that different eras overlap and live in our minds, giving rise to an amazing experience of multi-layered perception of culture and the reality around us.
Every time, I open a secret door into this speechless world of previous epochs, I meet eyes trained on me. In them is the expression of a strange expectation and reproach that excite and disturb me. In a focused and attentive gaze, I feel a call to dialogue.
And I accept the challenge and, with the artistic media available to me, offer them a new life and a new identity.
Thank you for your interest in my work!