Drawn to Film : Olexander Wlasenko
91.4 x 149.9 cm
I use only one tool--my index finger. I manually rub the pigment into the surface of the paper. This technique gives the most dexterity and somehow the warmth of the hand transfers to each drawing.
Inspiration is concealed in the pages of history or reels of film. The images I draw from surface from the vast well-spring of historical sources. These can be vintage visual documents such as books, archives or old movies. This fascination with cinema stems from my upbringing.
My studio production focuses on a personal and investigative discourse surrounding drawing’s relationship to lens based media (i.e. photography, cinema) in modern culture. The images I choose to work with trigger involuntary and perhaps atavistic memories. In relation to this, I perceive the photos and films I draw from as touchstones for retrieving a dislocated cultural memory. And yet they are not my memories, and to some degree, nor are they vehicles of my “culture”. They are one step, one generation, removed. In this regard, they act as metaphors for displacement.
