For the 2024 edition of the ART021 fair in Shanghai, Ms. Marina Fedorova created a series of paintings entitled Blue Orchids. The series’ key expressive devices are surreal imagery and colour. Various shades of blue were selected for their association with water, sky, and air. The snow-capped mountainscapes can also be read as visual representations of the element of water, appearing in the physical states of snow and ice.

 

For the Artist, the natural element of water becomes an object of art, symbolising the life-giving force of nature. Up to 80% of the human body is water, and human embryos inside the mother’s womb form and develop in the amniotic fluid colloquially known as ‘water.’ Astronauts train underwater, as the physical aspects of neutral buoyancy are closest to the state of zero gravity. Performing various tasks at a water immersion facility, they essentially learn to survive underwater in order to better adapt to the microgravity during spaceflight. Dark or light blue, clear, cool or warm, water can be liquid, solid, or gaseous. Humans always perceived aquatic depths as unknown domain – similar to the outer space that has always signified the unknown and is now also synonymous with weightlessness.

 

In this series of paintings, the Artist revisits her favourite motif of snow peaks – except that here she enriches the state of meditative contemplation invoked by the mountain landscapes by introducing a fantasy image charged with a special meaning: the blue tropical orchids, known for their capacity for survival under severe conditions, indicate power and endurance.

 

Here, Melting Glacier is rendered in monochrome to better convey the state of balance between the celestial, aerial, and aquatic – both natural and artificial. The Artist uses a shade of blue to depict the blurred borders, seemingly illustrating the transition between dream and reality, referencing the Surrealists’ play with multi-dimensionality and visual perception. Ms. Fedorova’s choice of colours allows her to point towards other dimensions, an abode of dreams where the connection to the waking state is broken and the dividing line between space and time is obscured.

 

The artwork stylistically gravitates towards Art Deco, as suggested by its streamlined geometry, deliberate lack of mysterious and profound symbolism, and a general escapist feel. Ms. Marina Fedorova sharply divides the pictorial plane into two parts, intentionally placing the otherworldly realm behind the confines delineated by the mountain range and mirror-like water surface and apparently beyond reach. In addition to other physical attributes, water also has optical properties, refracting light, deforming appearances, creating natural boundaries between environments. It is these deformations pointing to the existence of other worlds that the painter seeks to portray, inadvertently quoting the artistic and philosophical tropes of the 20th century: engaging in a game with the viewer’s imagination, she comes up with new visions of the non-existent.

 

Another surreal element of the painting that takes up a large portion of its spatial arrangement is the blue orchid epitomising transcendence. The image of the flower is dramatically exaggerated, although not given centre stage: the gigantic inflorescence is placed behind the mountain range, seemingly off limits. The mountaintops emphasise the flower’s scale and simultaneously accentuate its otherworldliness. Thus the orchid is perceived not as a feature of natural beauty, but as an animate being, a character complete with its own story.

 

A landscape blending snow-capped mountains and tropical orchids is enchanting in its non-realistic quality. However, the Artist admits that she was initially struck by the beauty of a completely real blue flower she had glimpsed in a shop window. Taking the flower home, Ms. Fedorova was caught in a snow storm. The snowflakes being blown over the blue blossoms created an improbable contrast that had so impressed the Artist that she was inspired to start a new series of paintings.

 

The composition of the second artwork, Blue Orchids, is built around a clearly visible mountain range, to which end the Artist selected an elevated viewpoint, as if the peaks were at the viewer’s eye level. Here, too, a sensation of unreality is induced by the appearance of blossoming blue orchids. They act as a screen concealing the way to uncharted and sacral domains beyond the layman’s reach. Drawing the bulk of attention, they seem to distract the viewers, hiding among their stems a fossilised skeleton of some extinct animal acting as a symbol of all things old and defunct, no longer belonging in this world. Like the Surrealists before her, the Artist is fascinated by death as a biological experience of bodily transformation. Here, just as in Melting Glacier, Ms. Marina Fedorova divides the pictorial plane in two, placing the past behind clearly marked borders, thereby making it hard to approach or even utterly inaccessible.

 

Orchids, particularly the blue variety, make the impression of something otherworldly. Although such colours do not occur naturally and were introduced artificially, the flower itself is an undisputable work of nature. Despite their outward fragility, these flowers are incredibly sturdy and resilient. Some species grow on bare rocks or high up in the treetops without ever touching the ground. Orchids symbolise survival amid inhospitable environments, not only managing to retain their beauty, but becoming the paragon of dignity and adaptability. The Artist bestows these qualities upon human beings by envisioning a hybrid of man and orchid.

 

It is through the medium of sculpture that Ms. Fedorova continues her fantasy play, evoking the Surrealists’ beloved game of ‘exquisite corpse’ that originated uncanny imagery of half-humans and half-animals by merging human figures with various objects, fish or insects. In this case, the Artist treats the orchid not merely as a beautiful inflorescence, but as a living being veering towards anthropomorphism and having a character and destiny of its own. Revisiting her past as an academically trained fashion designer, Ms. Marina Fedorova creates a series of mannequin-like sculptures that augment the concept of the Blue Orchids series, further elaborating its mood through gestures, postures, and the overall image. The purpose of this particular mannequin is not to demonstrate the art of garment design, but to conceal its natural fragility by expressly showing off its exceptionality – an approach at odds with the true spirit of nature.

 

For instance, Orchid Lady 2 sculpture seems to be growing out of a block of stone, from which emerges an anthropomorphic figure wearing an orchid-shaped face mask. The face is only partially covered, leaving in the open view the most important window to the soul – the eyes.

 

Floral motifs in art are usually symbolically charged and trigger various associations which are also present in this sculptural composition. The flower’s shape, colour, taste, smell, and blossoming time normally have various attached connotations, offering a key to personality or communicating a certain moral or philosophical message. Botanical symbolism can be traced back to ancient literature in which plants were often used as metaphors for virtues and vices. Some species are even mentioned as characters of myths and legends endowed with distinctive skills and personality traits that predestine their fate and mission. Ms. Marina Fedorova enhances the new artwork series with this sculpture to illustrate the concept of beauty being born out of shapelessness through efforts not only physical, but also mental and spiritual.

 

Aleksandra Danilovskikh
Art Historian, Art Expert