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God Gift

March 22nd, 2012

God Gift

GOD’S GIFT
By Yelena Tylkina
“You missed a spot.”

Nikolai Nenko, “Kolya”, pointed his swollen, hairy finger at the kitchen’s ceiling.

“We need a second coat of paint. I want the apartment to look new for the baby.
It better be a son! Women are worthless…” he exclaimed with contradiction free, firm look on his face and banged his fist at the table. Than he moved forward gently slapped the swollen belly of his nine months pregnant wife, Dina and added:
”I will name him after myself! My Junior.”


Dina, at the moment, was standing on a chair, with her left hand holding the top of the refrigerator, stretching her body far up while her right hand moved a large brush with crimson paint back and forth. She was painting the kitchen’s ceiling. Dina had a hard time keeping her balance on a kitchen chair so, instead of answering her beloved Kolya, she just moved her shoulders nervously like she was trying to scare off a fly. Nikoly put out his last cigarette, gazed at the cigarette-butt for some time and wrinkled his forehead as if trying to remember something of importance.

“Red kitchen is very patriotic. Yew! A good beginning for my son, maybe he will choose a military profession. Nikolay Nenko Junior- the Officer!” Kolay commented with joy in his eyes, then crushed the empty pack of cigarettes in his hand and complained to Dina that the smell of paint gave him a bit of headache and that he had to step out to clear his head and to get some cigarettes. Did she need anything from the kiosk? Maybe some sweets, or some cold beer, because a woman in Dina’s condition must have cravings from time to time, you know.

Nikoly stood up from his chair, yawned, stretched his stocky body, made boxing moves with his hands in an illusion of a boxing match with an invisible opponent and disappeared from the kitchen. Dina heard pocket change drop on the corridor floor as Kolya started a long chain of curses and the entrance door slam against its frame as Kolya’s baritone descended downstairs.
A soft embrace of a peaceful silence gave Dina chills. She glanced at her bare arms, covered with goose bumps, shook her body a couple of times like a happy dog and started singing:

“… Willow, green, little willow
You bended over Fast River,
Don’t conceal, Let me know,
Where is my love gone?”

The cosmopolitan, Kieve native couple married three years ago. They began to worry that Dina was sterile during the second year of the marriage. Privately, Dina agonized over her ability to get pregnant. She strongly believed that her marriage would collapse if she didn’t get pregnant soon. And now, Dina’s stomach was “bigger than a globe” as Kolya would say, and she felt like a queen in her kingdom. Loved, protected and needed. Who could ask for anything more?

Glowing with happiness from a thought of coming close to motherhood, Dina worked enthusiastically, bending and stretching in every direction her swollen - but not for long now - body. She would stop only to sweep beads of sweat from under her newspaper hat, or to pull down her sun- flower pattern housedress that hardly covered her protruding belly. She had so many things to do before baby came. She would try to finish painting her tiny, “khrooschouvka” apartment today, then…

Dina stopped working, stopped thinking and squatted down on the chair. The air bubble got stuck in her windpipe. She grimaced and moved her chin from side to side, rolled her eyes in and out from her eye sockets, puffed her lips forward and gasped for air like a dying fish on the shore. Then still holding the brush in her fist, Dina knocked it against her rib cage, splashing red paint all over her self and the kitchen. Finally, she belched.

“R-wow!”

The power of the belch was so overwhelmingly intense that the chair she stood on suddenly moved. Dina lost her balance and plopped her butt on the floor. A hot waterfall ran out between her legs, creating a puddle around Dina’s thighs.

“Oh My God! My water broke!”

Dina jumped up. Cupping her crotch with her hands, she rushed to the kitchen window and stuck out her head.

“Kolya, Kolya!” She screamed into an empty street.




But her husband was nowhere to be found. Dina rushed out of the apartment down three floors and two blocks of agony to reach a pay telephone.

“Hello! My waters broken! Baby is coming! What? Address? …and wait outside? I am outside! Ok………..Ok!

After the emergency phone call, Dina dragged herself back to her building with the hope of finding her husband. She hadn’t quiet yet reached her building than she heard the siren. Dina waved her hand and screamed, signaling her location. Still, the ambulance car drove passed her. Dina went into a hysterical fit, pulled up the bottom part of her dress and waved it like a flag. The ambulance car backed up rapidly and suddenly stopped in front of Dina. She groaned from surprise and seized her belly for protection.

Totally soaked in perspiration, the ambulance driver jumped out and helped the pregnant woman to get inside the ambulance.

“I’m sorry Honey! I’m alone on this shift! Please try to hold on till we get to the hospital!”

The ambulance roared and leaped down the road. The siren screamed, “Get out of my way! Get out of my way! We have a situation here! We have a situation here!” OOOOOUUUUUweeeeeeeee!OOOOUUUUweeeeeeee!

Inside the ambulance, the stench from fresh vomit attacked Dina’s sense of smell and suffocation squeezed her throat. The ambulance had neither a bed, nor a place to sit on. Dina remained standing and held herself steady as the ambulance raced and twisted and turned, by grasping a sticky overhead cable inside the cabin. The floor was covered with a mélange of liquids that the human body produces. Her feet slid on the slimy floor and Dina banged hard against the ambulance wall but, through sheer will, she maintained her balance. Dina felt her abdomen snap and her insides begin to slide downward. She howled with pain and desperately scanned the interior for a medical robe, or anything that even appeared clean. At a corner of the cabin, she spotted a stack of newspapers.

The child stuck to the newspaper like a fresh kielbasa.

The boy was pink and had a very loud voice. The ambulance finally reached the destination. The driver helped the young woman with the newborn child in her arms to get out. The bright sun and fresh air punched her in the face. For a moment, the world spun and she almost fainted.

“Oh Honey! Hold yourself together!”

Evidently, even experienced driver was not prepared for the ultimate reality and began to fuss around Dina.

“You did it! Look what kind of a warrior you’ve given birth to! A Superman! I can’t believe my eyes!”

The driver took off his not so medically white jacket and wrapped it around the young mother.

Dragging her feet like a drunken wino with the taste of the umbilical cord still fresh in her mouth, Dina entered the hospital. A beastly looking, red-faced nurse – who was really meant to be a butcher, barricaded the entrance.

“Hold on! What’s this? Eh? You’re bringing your infections in here? You gave birth in the street, then stay there! Get out! Go home!”

The exhausted mother walked out and sat on a bench under a linden tree. It was a fresh October day, full of sunshine. Migrating groups of birds were singing going away songs. The little boy smiled. The malachite autumn sky reflected in his eyes. Wrinkling his nose, child blew a bubble with all the colors of the rainbow.

“Look at this gorgeous baby! This is simply God’s gift! The whole world has blossomed!”

The new mother looked up and saw the joyous, baked-apple face of the old woman.

Then Dina finally realized her situation, as if she was seeing everything for from a distance. Her housedress was damp and smudged with blood and mucous that still dripped from her thighs. She wore but one dirty slipper and held her child wrapped in a newspaper. Dina twisted her face and bared her gums in silent cry and began to rock her now skinny, fragile body, back and forth.

“Cry honey, go ahead, tears are the best remedy for pain.” With the corner of the sweaty sleeve of her brightly colored blouse, the old woman began to clean the child’s face. “Look honey how the newspaper has imprinted itself on you baby’s forehead! I can read it: M-e-d-i-c-a-l l-e-a-p f-o-r-w-a-r-d. Ha! Perhaps he will be a Professor, or a Doctor!” She then gently stroked Dina’s hair.

“To give birth is not a big deal, Honey. The real work is start now. Trust this old woman, she knows. I have on my one seven kids. They are all over the country. Some go even as fare as Vladivostok. Some are in jail. One is dead… In a new life is a new hope.”

Event Date: 7 October 1977

Creative Realism @2005


Travel Notes Show Europe Show Belarus

July 3rd, 2011

Travel Notes Show Europe Show Belarus

Travel Notes:

“Show Europe- Show Belarus”,
The Portuguese Event.


The joint cultural campaign “Show Europe-Show Belarus”, including Belarus and five European Union countries, Germany, Lithuania, Portugal, Sweden and Estonia, was recently successfully launched in Portugal, in the ancient city of Evora.

The opening presentation of the event was given by the director of the Portugal-based “Oficina de Courela”, and the Belarusian - American artist, Yelena Tylkina. Tylkina’s personal exhibition entitled “The Divine Female”, which included 13 of her monochrome works and a lecture-dialogue about Belarusian art abroad, took place amidst the elegance of the “Museu de Evora”, on May 26 through June 19, 2011.

On the June 3rd through June 5th , at the “Sociedade Harmonia Eborense” (The Harmonious Society of Evora), the cultural exchange campaign “Show Europe- Show Belarus” continued with a group exhibition of Belarusian and Portuguese artists. Among them were artists Yelena Tylkina, Konstantin Selihanov and Antonio Monteiro; photographers Pedro Lobo and Yra Matsiyun. The exhibition was follow by a concert of the Belarusian folk vocal group “Akana” and a popular Portuguese local band known as the “No Mazurka Band”. Both performed together and produced a unique potpourri combining the antique songs of Belarus with the colorful background of a Portuguese band. The artistic and musical mixology was suitable to all tastes: from toddlers to the elderly. The music traveled through the many Portuguese and Belarusian hearts assembled there and engaged the audience to sing along. Couples of every age were soon dancing through all the long corridors and endless rooms of the Sociedade Harmonia Eborense.

Thereafter, a series of engaging workshops were conducted every afternoon that surpassed usual convention and were received with great participation and interest.

Together the participants accomplished the creation of an exciting and comfortable cultural space in which everyone became freely acquainted with the contemporary art of Belarus and Portugal.

While the event had an authentic Belarusian- Portuguese flair to it, it was truly international. The language of harmony and understanding blossomed fully along with the great promise of a fruitful tomorrow. Hopefully, a new cultural chapter has opened for Belarus, and international audiences will be challenged to broaden their horizons and examine their assumptions.

This was a truly historical moment in view of the fact that this was the first cultural connection between these two countries in history.

Much credit for the success of this extraordinary and experimental venture goes to the President of the Oficina de Courela, Ms. Elza Neto, the Portuguese partner of the campaign, whose high level of organizational skill made this venture so successful.

Yelena Tylkina,
30th of June, 2011



Mao in Beverly Hills

August 5th, 2010

Mao in Beverly Hills

By Yelena Tylkina

Little Suzy heard a splash and happy, horny, ecstatic noises in the pool area of the house. She rushed to the back door. In the pool, an enormous being was joyfully doing laps in the organically treated turquoise water. The thing was translucent and a pink glow reflected from its weird shape. Some kind of hybrid between a human baby and …

Oh! – Little Suzy’s teeth became painfully sensitive and she felt a numbness spreading in her chest creating a sensation as if her rib cage was frozen solid. She gasped for air…

From the age of seven, Suzy dreamed about being an alien abductee. In two months she would have her 13th birthday- but now, her batmitzva dreams had already come true. She could already see the headlines:

“Extra! Extra! Extraterrestrial Contact in Sunny Southern California!”

“Little Suzy is the Princess of the Black Hole!”

Left behind on her bed with three hundred dollar sheets were all the negative criticism about the extra piece of chocolate cake, Butterfingers, Mars Bars, size eleven shoos, flaming acme and boys. Suzy was about to become a star.

_____________________


Respectable Ruth Rothko was a quiet, intellectual woman, who loved everyone and was loved by everyone in return. All of the Save the Earth, animals, ozone layer, green forest, and hungry baby societies got generous donations from her. Ruth enjoyed gardening and conducted a heavy correspondence on the net and in the old-fashioned manner: by mail. From foreign envelopes she occasionally made collages and participated in local art exhibitions, wrote books and articles on the subject of comparative religion, was an undeveloped piano player, a vegetarian, and single.
The last two mentioned facts were a sore subject to her devoted Ecuadorian housekeeper, who felt that her unique talent for cooking delicacies made of hooves and intestines was totally wasted in the United States.

On her 42nd birthday, Ruth received a considerable number of interesting presents, among them, a large, healthy looking pig which, according to her housekeeper, would bring happiness, good luck and a sense of “center” to any person and, especially, to a woman in need of a mate.

“Family is the most important thing”.

Rosa Rubella Tamara Gonzalez – “Perez” - by marriage, was living proof of this. She had left behind five children, four of which were “masculine”. Truly, she was blessed! One day, when Rosa goes back to Ecuador (only God knows when!) she will always have someone to meet her with open arms and open hands.

Ruth was more fluent in French than Spanish, but she got the drift and kept the pig. The beast was smart, sly and lazy, had an enormous body, a narrow cut pair of ever-suspicious eyes and atrociously bad hygienic habits. He was a spitting image of the former leader of the People’s Republic of China: Mao Tse Tung. Ruth recognized the unique qualities of her new pet’s character and her intelligence and weird sense of humor would not settle for a less suitable statement than a Swarovsky crystal collar with three letters: M-A-O.

______________________________


Myopic Suzy did not have the courage to introduce herself to the alien. Instead, with sweaty, chubby fingers, she betrayed her only chance for happiness and dialed 911.

The police dispatcher transmitted the message that at certain address, in an upscale neighborhood, there was a great disturbance. Apparently, some illegal aliens, probably drunk Mexicans, got carried away and were furiously trashing the place.

Police Officers Travis Good and Judy Freeman were very disappointed in discovering that the drunk Mexicans were nothing more then one, single, gigantic, ill-tempered pig wearing what appeared to be a diamond collar shining like the Milky Way. The officers looked one at another with the collective thought that they may be hallucinating from the sugar overflow in their brains from all those mouth-watering, double-chocolate donuts.
But this was not a game for the officers of the police force. They hoped that the boar with the expensive jewelry would simply melt in the chlorine. But little Suzy interjected that her family was environmentally aware and used only organic products. She added that her mother could not be disturbed at the moment, because she had just undergone a “ butt lift” and was presently under medication and that their Polish housekeeper was at the pharmacy, but would be back shortly.

Officers Travis Good and Judy Freeman tried to scare the pig out of the pool by using different types of police tactics: polite persuasion, insults, threats, bribes, to even firing a few gun shots in the air. As a direct result of all the commotion, Mao had a healthy bowl-movement and several dark sausages of fresh feces began to float in circles around him.

However, a boar, with an historic name like Mao, was not so easy to intimidate. If reincarnation exists, then the spirit of the leader of China’s Revolution would continue to do his leisurely laps as he pleased.

The police officers had had enough and called the Animal Control Center.
Within minutes, it became very crowded at the pool. The pool was drained, but the boar was fast, slippery and noisy. He squealed, bit and released himself constantly. The battle with Mao took much longer than anyone expected. By sundown, the dedicated civil servants were about to give up. Officer Good was very close to putting an end to all the nonsense and to have a fantastic barbeque - with the beer on him. He slowly removed his pistol, cocked it and aimed at the letter “O”.

Sensing the immediate danger, Mao lunged at his would be attacker and bit him in the crotch.

__________________________________


As Ruth arrived home, she heard a shot and Mao’s squeals for help. She rushed to her neighbor’s back yard and began to frantically plead for the life of her sweet, innocent pet. Ruth reassured everyone that she knew what she was doing. She brought a wide plank, carefully placed it at the shallow end of the pool, and began to gently call him. Agile as a cat, Mao climbed out of the pool and began to nibble lovingly on Ruth’s sleeve while making soft, happy, snorting noises and moving his snout up and down, begging for approval and a cookie.

Ruth commanded Mao to perform some tricks: he walked on his hind feet; he rolled over; he played dead. The tired, wet, and recently frustrated crowd broke into applause. But, in the middle of all this happiness, little Suzy suddenly collapsed in a fit of hysterical tears. Everyone thought that this was merely the after effect of excitement and exhaustion. Little did they know that Suzy had just realized that her dream of becoming an alien abductee had just evaporated: the glowing pink alien with fluffy, translucent ears was only a neighbor’s pet pig. Suzy’s housekeeper also burst into tears. Mao evoked some sentimental memories of the sweet family that she left behind in a small village in her beloved Poland and especially her husband, Joachim, the freckled albino who was obedient only to heavy liquor and his hardworking wife.

Mao’s day of adventure had exhausted him and, as he rested at the feet of lonely Ruth, he began to make plans for tomorrow, for the future.

Fiction @2003











Erotic Blossoms And Brooding Fantasies

May 1st, 2009

Erotic Blossoms And Brooding Fantasies

Yelena Tylkina’s Art by Donald Kuspit

I have to say that I was taken with Yelena Tylkina’s images of flowers, all lushly blossoming and often passionately red—luridly alive still lives—and taken aback (at least momentarily) by many of her female figures, not because of their nakedness, but because of their raw narcissism, all the more confrontational because of the raw graffiti (Bronx, 1997) environment in which they appear. Dramatizing the female body—presented with photographic clarity, and hauntingly nuanced by atmospheric paint—in what are clearly dream pictures, as the fantastic images (many from primitive art) fixed on their flat space indicates, Tylkina conveys both the angry glory and tortured unhappiness of being female.
The point is made clearly in three gloomy works—their darkness may be alleviated by patches of bright color, but it never lifts. In one (New York City, 1996) a naked, youthful, well-built woman holds up the wheel of the world, like an Atlas, keeping its machinery moving despite the surrounding chaos. But she seems to do so at the cost of her identity and individuality, as the hair that shrouds her face—the proverbial place where the inner self becomes manifest—suggests. In the second work (JFK Airport, 1996) this same female, her face now visible and her wide-open eyes staring at us, confronts us with her nakedness, all the more intimidating because her genitals are exposed. She squats in the ruins of some huge structure, holding up a fragment of its heavy roof—a sort of female Samson at the ironical moment she brings down the temple, physically blind and bound but in full consciousness of her destructive and self-destructive act and humiliating situation. She is self-possessed even as she is doomed, as the abyss below her implies.
Finally, we see this same haunted naked female, now with an African mask attached to the back of her head, and thus implicitly two faced—and suggesting her inner torment--chained to a decaying wooden column crowning an Aztec sculpture and sitting on a huge beam (like that in the second picture) spanning a black void (Mexican Water Goddess,1998). Chains hang from the beam. There’s a pile of skulls to her left and another wooden column—a totemic fragment--now marked with a small Jewish star. Symbols of death and suffering abound; even the flat church façade that frames her figure is pitch black, however luminous the openings in the towers. This woman seems to have lost her strength and will power. If the African mask is any clue, she is imprisoned by her own dark passions. Her existence is precarious, as her position above the void indicates.
There is an air of violence and despair in all three pictures. The antidote to their poisonous mood is the erotically charged, ecstatically colorful, manically intense flowers in Tylkina’s still lives. She oscillates between the extremes, finding no place to rest. Not even the crosses that often appear in her pictures offer reassurance. In one (Crossroad, 1998) a young woman’s beautiful face appears in the center of an enormous black cross—an enlarged quotation from Malevich, who came from Vitebsk Province, where Tylkina was also born (the abstract Suprematist character of the cross is made evident by the various small traditional crosses that surround it)—implying that she has been crucified. Still alive, she unflinchingly meets our gaze, but her body has disappeared into the mortifying black. (The work also suggests a struggle between modernist abstraction and traditionalist representation—however leavened by primitivism and surrealism—for the soul of her art.)
I am suggesting that Tylkina’s works are by and large allegories of female identity. There is a sort of surreal portrait of a male figure, Anastasios Sarikas, but it seems beside the larger point of her oeuvre, although his strong personality suggests the dominance of the male over the female, symbolized by the comparatively small flower, again in full blossom, at his feet. He turns away from the flower, as though indifferent to its wonderful presence, to confront the spectator with his glance, perhaps hoping to dominate her as he dominates the flower, a precious thing of rare and natural beauty. He is clearly a conquering male, awkwardly at rest but still vigorously, perhaps arrogantly, alert. Just as the female fights to hold her own in her grim environment—gain control of it, however finally overwhelmed and ignored by it—in the works previously mentioned, so the flower is dismissed by the male figure.
Going further, and looking at Tylkina’s oeuvre as a whole, I suggest that her works are an intriguing mix of self-hatred and self-love. She loves the seductive female body, and symbolizes its desire in many works, but she shows its frustration and dubious power in other works, suggesting a certain self-hatred. Narcissistic female desire is as natural and spontaneous as the floral pattern on the dress and the flowery head-dress the woman wears in one black and white work. The beautiful woman welcomes the embrace of a primitive male figure wearing an African mask marked by nails—a sort of god of the emotional underworld. Here (Fetish Girl, 2007) the female figure is comfortable with her body and desire. She is as instinctively alive as the primitive male figure, although its monstrousness may symbolize the destructive character of her powerful sexuality, should she lose control of it. Is that the secret of the grim works I have already discussed: is the struggle to take control of the dangerous and collapsing society around her a symbol of her struggle to take control of her dangerous instincts and collapsing inner world?
On the one hand, woman is a guilt-ridden symbol of suffering and loss. Perhaps Tylkina misses Belarus, however depressing it may have been, and is not entirely happy in the United States, which also has its depressing side. Tylkina may be unconsciously trapped in an unresolved conflict between her old and new homelands. Are the catastrophic ruins she depicts those of both countries, the graffitied Bronx a synecdoche of the latter? They seem to fuse in several images. On the other hand, woman is a glorious sexual being, ready for any and every pleasure, as the brilliant image of a man performing cunnilingus on her indicates (Nova, 2007). Her ecstasy is apparent, and so is her dominance of the man, who now sexually serves her rather than her sexually serving him, as is traditionally supposed to be the case. She is a total creature of instinctive nature, as the wonderful image(Primavera, 2007) of her embracing a tree, the lines of her body merging with its lines, makes clear. The beautiful bird, exquisitely rendered, that perches on her shoulder symbolizes her inner beauty. The two women rarely meet, unless they can be said to through the black and white in which they are rendered. Tylkina is a master of black and white, sometimes sharply contrasting them to dramatic effect, sometimes weaving them together into a kind of morbid gray.
I think Tylkina’s still life watercolors—another medium in which she is very much at home--are in a class by themselves. Bold, luscious, ripe flowers, fruit, and vegetables, are the vital alternative—especially in abundance--to Tylkina’s morbid scenes of death and suffering. Her handling is passionately suave: black informs the gifts of nature, intensifying their colors—often reds and yellows, sometimes intermingling, and with light emanating from them, as though they had no need of the sun to shine—and often extends into the surrounding space, making it darkly brooding, as in the powerful Beets, 1995. Peaches and Figs, 1995 is also a strong and intimate work: the still life is shown in confrontational close-up—it is as though it is approaching us to meet our approaching gaze--even as it maintains its separateness, and with that a peculiar aura of self-determination. If the females in the morbid images are self-representations, then the flowers are self-symbols, and the fruit, especially when they are cut open, are, I venture to say, symbols of the female genital. Of course Tylkina is following traditional models of the still life, as in Still Life with a Rose, 1999, which suggests a Dutch influence—the fruit peel is a familiar device for creating the illusion of space----but the point I want to make is that there is a kind of forceful feminine character to them, partly the result of their expressionistic fervor, partly the result of their age-old symbolic meaning. Vases and Pears, to refer to a 1999 watercolor, with their voluptuous lines, are familiar symbols of the seductive female body.
But let’s go further: the peach and the fig are ancient “hieroglyphs” of the archetypal female genital. The black core of the Tiger Lilies, 2000 is emblematic of female pubic hair. In the magnificent Night Flower, 1999, the pistils, which are the seed-bearing organ of a flower, that is, its female genital, as the fact that it consists of ovary, style, and stigma indicates, are on conspicuous display, at once inviting and intimidating. They dangle in our eyes; we can almost smell their strong perfume. The flower, as we know is a hermaphrodite, but the stamen, the pollen-bearing organ of a flower, consisting of the filament and anther, are barely (if at all) visible. The flower in the portrait of Anastasios Sarikas is implicitly an invitation to a sexual relation, but the exhibitionistic Night Flower has no need of a male lover, for its pistils hang like penises, suggesting that it is a symbol of the phallic woman, that is, the all-powerful mother.
The Night Flower stands out of the surrounding darkness, completely self-possessed and consummate in itself. It is a truly extraordinary presence—a profoundly erotic image of the traditionally hidden core of female identity, at once narcissistically exciting and sexually threatening, all the more so because it threatens to engulf and overwhelm the viewer. It brought to mind Wolfgang Lederer’s observation in his analysis of The Fear of Women: “If a woman is seen as revolting, how much so that which makes her a woman—her genital. The revolting, of course, was once the sacred.” Lederer adds: “emphasis was placed on the pubic area from paleolithic times on,” that is, as he says, in the primitive representation of the female body (thus partially explaining the unconscious rationale behind Tylinka’s use of it). “In later representations of the Goddess in Greece, Crete, Egypt Harrappa and all over Asia Minor, whether her name be Isis or Demeter, Aphrodite or Hathor or whatever, she is often shown in a sitting or squatting position, her thighs spread wide, her vulva plainly displayed. Such ritual exhibitionism of the naked goddess was acceptable to antiquity as part of the cult of the fertile womb.” I suggest that Tylkina’s dramatic images of women and symbols of women, whether morbidly flavored or ecstatically colorful, celebrate the cult of herself and the sacred complexity of woman.


A Marvelous Pebble In The Mosaic Of The World Of Art

May 1st, 2009

A Marvelous Pebble In The Mosaic Of The World Of Art

By Margarita Shklyarevskaya


It was not by chance that I name this short review on Yelena Tylkina:” A Marvelous Pebble in the Mosaic of the World of Art”, words that I borrow from a famous Russian artist Yuri Pimenov. Because Tylkina is, indeed, a special person: a gifted, uniquely individual, thinker and a master of any media with a refined story telling approach which has become quite rare these days. Her narrative is that of a woman with her dreams, desires, happiness, pain, disappointments and love.

Yelena Tylkina is a genuine artist. Like the patriarch of Impressionism, Camille Pissaro, she is a master of visual effect and illusion but also of the deep, intangible things in the human psyche. The proof of my words lies in her retrospective exhibition of over sixty works presented by the QCC Art Gallery.

The exhibition is a body of work divided in three groups: unique graphics, phenomenal paintings and watercolors emanating light, all residing in the spacious rooms of a beautiful gallery and united with one theme – psychoanalyses and a search of the self.

This exhibition is a voyage to an incredible world of erotic blossoms and vivid fantasies .I will start from the room filled with black and white graphics which are exquisitely executed. But first, let’s talk about a precious jewel that welcomes viewers at the main entrance. Astonishing in intensity, the emotional painting,”Violet” (2007), is a virtuoso piece that reveals the tale of the short journey of life: from birth to death. A flower opens, gives its beauty to the world and fades into nothingness. But this painting is an optimistic, so to speak, homage to the ecstasy of the brief earthly existence and a triumph of a blossoming soul over the turbulence and trials of life. My guess is that it is a self-portrait of the artist. I recognize Yelena’s enigmatic smile, wandering eyes, proud posture and a light cloud of ultra feminine sensitivity over all her persona which may be mistaken for grievous vulnerability. It was no accident that “Violet” was a chosen for the cover of her art book and to grace the invitations for the exhibition.

In the black and white work “First Kiss” (2007), the awesome passion of pure love shines upon the viewer. Then, the proud and lonely “Queen “(2007) on the chess board caught between the sharp edges of a geometric dilemma: What are the odds? How to continue when everything is lost? A painted novel of our life unfolds. We all wander between choices of black and white, right and wrong. But the game of life always seems to be one move ahead of us. And in complicated circumstance the basics remain the same: To be strong and truthful to one ’s self when difficult obstacles lie ahead.

I think this principle applies to Yelena Tylkina in her approach toward her professional success. She is a member of the National Association of Woman Artists of America, which nurtured famous American artists as Marie Cassat and Judy Chicago. Yelena has, in her account, several awards and honors for her contribution to the world of art both nationally and internationally, and her art work is included in many private and corporate collections all over the globe.

As I step into the main exhibition room full of colorful, yet dramatic paintings I note that Yelena Tylkina has surprising ability to produce quantity with superb attention to quality in her work. She is truly a workaholic; a prolific artist with originality and scope that befits a rising star in the art world. Or, to be absolutely accurate, she is a person who is obsessed with creativity to the point where she herself has become a creative tool in the hands of higher powers.

The over all style of Tylkina’s complex works is figurative symbolism. Her symbolism in itself is a twisted strip of our collective existence that is taken apart by Tylkina’s sharp eye and penetrating intellect. At first glance, the heavy symbolism of her work overwhelms you. Yet, immediate connections accrue and symbols sweep you into the world of her personal confession which echoes any woman’s search of her own soul. The higher level of self expression of Tylkina’s creative “ying” is in her endless self portraiture. Perhaps this is a syndrome similar to Frida Kalho’s? Maybe not, but the thought came to mind that Tylkina uses herself as a sort of guinea pig to see what is inside the rest of humanity. She gives both contemporaries and future viewers a full report of her own life saga in the great hope that women’s complex internal world and sexuality can be finally understood.

Each and every one of her works is a philosophical, social and psychoanalytical essay, which is contemporary and timeless, professionally executed and emotionally deep. What is woman’s place in today’s world? Even now, it is still an open, pending question. Decoding the mining of Tylkina’s feminine series illustrates the constant struggle between the sexes in the arena of life. In every line of Tylkina’s works there is a secret message engraved for us: her quest for equality of women, recognition of their abilities in every aspect of life, if not their superiority in many such areas. Who is our lord, boss, manager, judge? Tylkina comprehends that which is not obvious to everyone – Time is our only master. And in “New York City” (1996) she puts herself in between the gears of a ticking mechanism of fate, rotating the wheels of time, to determine her own destiny. She is tormented again and again in “Tormento” (1998). Her nude body pressed against cold cement under a bridge and yet her spirit floats freely above with an enlightened gaze. A masterpiece from this series is the work ”Crossroad”. The artist crucifies herself on the crossroads of Time and Space; a self- analysis that takes even Freudian theory to yet higher levels.

But the drama of being a woman is layered with Romanticism, erotica and wild sexuality as well. The emotional material is pushed through a grinding mechanism of the artist’s internal world. Her being -as a surreal form- can overload you with visual puzzles and brain games. One novelty of Tylkina’s symbolism is graffiti. The universal language of our time, or from the beginning of time: from prehistoric wall drawings to aerosol can painting, she is seeks inspiration without judgment or criticism, guided only by love.

Love is not ignored in her images of males. Male portraits are domineering, but sensitive. Gods are gentle and loyal. “Poseidon” caresses the earth, longs to leave his oceanic kingdom, dreams of the flower in bloom in his heart and hopes for unconditional love.

Of course, one can not miss the canvasses dedicated to New York City, the giant cosmopolitan-monster and the Wizard of Oz all wrapped in one; the grand prize for those who dare. Yelena Tylkina, an immigrant from Belarus, chose this city as her Mecca and became devoted to her new birthplace. The beauty and the beast are the artist and the city. And like a fairy tale with a good ending, the beast has become a loving prince and the beauty has blossomed fully.

And speaking of blossoms - the third room, the balcony (which I call the watercolor room), is filled with large, emotionally uplifting, watercolors of floral bouquets dripping with a zest for life. I could sense the aroma of painted flowers that left me invigorated and fresh.

There she stood: Yelena Tylkina, elegant and courageous in the middle the gallery, an Amazon of contemporary avant-garde, who most assuredly shall leave her mark in art history.



Translation from the New York City Russian newspaper
“Russian Bazaar” #36(646) Sept. 4 -10, 2008
www.russian-bazaar.com Article ID 13330
http://www.russian-bazaar.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=13330

 

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