Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.
-Henri Matisse
Oksana looks back on the past quite a bit and her childhood has great influence on her present collections. Her fascination with architecture began when her father took her on long walks through the city of Vilnius, Lithuania. He would point out the foundations, beams and chassis which created the towers of the town. While holding her father's hand, Oksana remembers how strange it was to be part of these crumbling buildings, for these churches, halls, and bridges had been there long before she was born and will remain long after. The need to permanently document a moment in time is a theme that runs throughout Oksana's work.
Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.
- Salvador Dali
The study of decay is one that requires a sharp eye. Oksana loved the idea of a crumbling wall- to capture the gritty texture of brick- to see the delicate balance between a work defeated by time- yet still defying gravity is to see the divine through detail. Many people who take a cursory glance at Oksana's drawings believe them to be photographs. It is not the accuracy of her hand that represents this, but the accuracy of her eye. Oksana once explained that a lamp dimly lit on a foggy street should never be drawn with sharp edges, that the boundaries between what we see and what we want to see should be necessarily blurred.Permanence can be similarly witnessed in Oksana's favourite medium. Charcoal is a tricky substance that once pressed onto a page can never be removed- only augmented. The concept of taking ash and recycling it into art is one that appeals to Oksana. Her present drawings are done in black alone, which is what makes her work such a study in contrast.
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
-Aristotle
The black lines on white paper may be intrepid, but as Oksana commented, these lines are rounded and smugged until you possess a spectrum of gray. Oksana notices the same thing in her life- the jarring move from the USSR, the incredible trust she placed in her Love to come to Canada, the devotion she possesses in raising her beautiful children. Oksana is intuitive and extremely sensitive to the environment that surrounds her. After leaving art and coming back to it, she has discovered that drawing is an integral piece of herself that refuses to lay dormant. Oksana loves detail and the detail in her life is an intimate part of her identity.
God is in the details. -Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (Architect)
-Henri Matisse
Oksana looks back on the past quite a bit and her childhood has great influence on her present collections. Her fascination with architecture began when her father took her on long walks through the city of Vilnius, Lithuania. He would point out the foundations, beams and chassis which created the towers of the town. While holding her father's hand, Oksana remembers how strange it was to be part of these crumbling buildings, for these churches, halls, and bridges had been there long before she was born and will remain long after. The need to permanently document a moment in time is a theme that runs throughout Oksana's work.
Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.
- Salvador Dali
The study of decay is one that requires a sharp eye. Oksana loved the idea of a crumbling wall- to capture the gritty texture of brick- to see the delicate balance between a work defeated by time- yet still defying gravity is to see the divine through detail. Many people who take a cursory glance at Oksana's drawings believe them to be photographs. It is not the accuracy of her hand that represents this, but the accuracy of her eye. Oksana once explained that a lamp dimly lit on a foggy street should never be drawn with sharp edges, that the boundaries between what we see and what we want to see should be necessarily blurred.Permanence can be similarly witnessed in Oksana's favourite medium. Charcoal is a tricky substance that once pressed onto a page can never be removed- only augmented. The concept of taking ash and recycling it into art is one that appeals to Oksana. Her present drawings are done in black alone, which is what makes her work such a study in contrast.
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
-Aristotle
The black lines on white paper may be intrepid, but as Oksana commented, these lines are rounded and smugged until you possess a spectrum of gray. Oksana notices the same thing in her life- the jarring move from the USSR, the incredible trust she placed in her Love to come to Canada, the devotion she possesses in raising her beautiful children. Oksana is intuitive and extremely sensitive to the environment that surrounds her. After leaving art and coming back to it, she has discovered that drawing is an integral piece of herself that refuses to lay dormant. Oksana loves detail and the detail in her life is an intimate part of her identity.
God is in the details. -Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (Architect)
Oksana Bumstead
About the Artist
By Morgan Whitfield
About the Artist
By Morgan Whitfield
