{"id":6928,"date":"2020-03-22T11:44:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T10:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artinterview.com\/?post_type=interview&p=6928"},"modified":"2020-04-20T15:03:07","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T13:03:07","slug":"irina-shark","status":"publish","type":"interview","link":"https:\/\/artinterview.com\/en\/interviews\/irina-shark\/","title":{"rendered":"Irina Shark"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Fanny Revault<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The sculptures of Irina Shark\u00a0show great virtuosity, portraying a range of feelings inspired by reality and realised through her own interpretation.\u00a0Appearing frozen in time, they capture the emotion behind an expression, the singularity of a face, an intense gesture caught in a suspended moment… Casting her sharp and curious gaze on our world, Irina\u2019s work reflects her own inner world, a world which tries to understand and express the essence of things, to go towards ‘the truth’.<\/strong> Interview with the young sculptor who talks to us about her passion for sculpture, her sources of inspiration, the traditional\u00a0technique of her work until the final bronze.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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What is your artistic training and what brought you to sculpture?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I\u2019m a self-taught sculptor. I started to sculpt out of blue whilst living in Hong Kong \u2013 I just felt like sculpting and so I started to sculpt in my flat, alone. There weren\u2019t any art schools where I could learn the techniques that I wanted or needed, although at the very beginning pursuing formal training didn’t cross my mind anyway.<\/p>\n

I don’t come from an artistic family but growing up in Russia exposes you to a lot of art. I used to draw and paint a lot, and I did a lot of craft too. As far back as I can remember, sculpture has always seemed the most noble and fascinating form of art to me, as well as one which is totally out of reach \u2013 impossible to do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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You define yourself as an impressionist and expressionist sculptor.\u00a0At the crossroads of these movements, how would you define your style? Emotional intensity perhaps?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Impressionism is an art movement that emerged as a reaction to the canons and rigidity of the academic realism at the end of 19th century. It is an attempt to depict an “impression”, a feeling of someone’s presence, of movements and gestures, rather than a realistic representation. Even though it\u2019s mostly used for painting, several sculptors are also purely impressionistic, such as Paolo Troubetzkoy and Medardo Rosso.<\/p>\n

Expressionism presents the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting reality radically to evoke moods and ideas and show the violence of emotions. It is all about expressive intensity centred around the very personal inner world of the creator. The best example is \u201cScream\u201d by Edvard Munch, as well as paintings by Van Gogh and Modigliani. In sculpture it is without doubt that the work by Bourdelle carries the best marks of expressionism.<\/p>\n

Oscar Wilde said, \u201cEvery portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.\u201d Being a figurative sculptor, I attempt to create a very personal “distortion” to show the world through my own eyes \u2013 my work reflects my inner world of emotions and my emotional experiences. I accentuate lines and forms in order to express the spiritual and emotional state that I want to interpret, in an attempt to go to the truth and not just to the truth of the surface.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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In this quest for Truth\u2026\u00a0What do you like to reveal?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This is a difficult question. Every time I am asked this, I must think about how to explain in one minute what took me years to learn and understand. In a way, my work reveals to me what I intended to reveal. Pierre Soulage said, “Painting does not transmit meaning, but it makes the meaning; it does not communicate. It is above all a thing that we like to see, that we like to frequent, origin and object of a dynamic of the sensitivity.\u201d That\u2019s so true, isn’t it?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Who are the people who inspire you?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Creative and hard-working people in all artistic fields, those who have a strong vision and who firmly believe in what they do. I find inspiration in friends who are musicians and classical dancers, as well as from great artists from the past.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n