INTERFERENCE

March 1 – March 28, 2021
The Slide Room Gallery is honoured to introduce you to visual and multimedia artist Natalia Egorova (Наталия Егорова) of the Russian Federation. Highlighted in INTERFERENCE are five projects by Egorova: Marsyas, Marsyas’ Diary, The Body in Question, Pseudomorph Iand Pseudomorph III. These pieces include a variety of artistic approaches, such as: video performance, situational intervention, installation, etching and sculpture. Egorova’s practice is conceptually based—meaning and information are central aspects to her work. In some of Egorova’s projects she partnered with specialized professionals, scientists, engineers, mathematicians, etc. in order to more fully explore specific ideas and concepts. This online exhibition provides a glimpse into the diversity and depth of Egorova’s art practice and her interest in nature and science.

For more information and images of Natalia Egorova’s work we recomend following her Facebook page.

Artist Statement

The title of this exhibition refers to the phenomenon of interference. When waves from different sources begin to overlap, it leads to their mutual strengthening or weakening in different areas simultaneously. Similar processes take place in the perception of art. It happens between the artist and the viewer, who connects their own experience of realization of artworks.

Marsyas Project

Science art project (2016-current time). An unfinished project by Natalia Egorova (artist), Sergey Simonov (ornithologist, PhD), Daniil Bakalin (technical and software engineer), and Roman Kukosh (technical engineer)

This installation/sculpture/sound work brings together science and art in a poetic investigation of the intricacies of nature found in the vocal organ of mocking birds. Egorova, alongside a team of scientists and engineers, has spent the last five years developing Marsyas. This complex work is an enlarged, recreation of a mocking bird’s sound organ, suspended in a hydraulic environment.

If you are interested in following the future development of this project, we encourage you to follow these two Instagram accounts @marsyas_inner_life and @marsyas_outer_life

Marsyas’ Diary

Paper, etching, 30×20 cm, 2017-current time

Marsyas’s Diary is a collection of delicate etchings inspired by the Marsyas project. These etchings include sketches, notes, letters, and descriptions. The pages in this collection contain detailed, accurate drawings of tiny birds and complex diagrams showing the artist’s process, while other pages seem to depart from reality and merge into a surreal and abstracted world. Egorova’s use of historical printing processes in this work is successful as she describes the contrasting, futuristic and almost sci-fi appearance of Marsyas.

The Body in Question

Video installation – three suspended cathode-ray tubes demonstrating video of piloerection (pilomotor reflex) and horizontal lightbox

In The Body in Question, Egorova investigates the body’s reactions to the sensation of touch applied to the skin. She describes this project as follows, “The skin is a metaphor of the line dividing the world into ‘one’s own’ and ‘other’. It is a metaphor of a plane, a receptive field that makes a connection between the body and its environment.” Our skin reacts to the slightest touch, to feelings of pleasure, pain, fear, nervousness and anxiety. This video focuses on the reaction and not the cause, highlighting these ambiguous sensations and drawing attention to the almost alien-like way the skin seems to react on its own.

Pseudomorph I

Sand and acrylic 110х600х15 cm, 2009. Science consultants: Oleg Sibelev (Senior research associate of Petrology and Tectonics laboratory of the Geology Institute of Karelian Science centre of Russian Science Academy, Candidate of geology and mineralogy) and Vladimir Eflov (associated professor of mechanics subdepartment of Petrozavodsk State University, Candidate of physics and mathematics)

The Encyclopaedia Britannica describes the word ‘pseudomorph’ as a, “mineral formed by chemical or structural change of another substance, though retaining its original external shape.” In Pseudomorph I, Egorova explores this conflict between material and form by investigating the shapes made by skipping rocks across the surface of water. She then recreated these patterns with an opposing material: sand.

Pseudomorph III

Intervention art piece, Rudersdorf-Berlin, 2016

Egorova describes Pseudomorph III as “a reinterpretation of the famous theme of the conflict between form and content. Reproducing this phenomenon with artistic means, the process of mineralogical pseudomorph (fossils) formation, by transferring it from the field of science into the field of art. Pseudomorphs, which replicate the external shell and replace the internal structure of the object, as a result become a metaphor for the transformation of the original object into the museum piece. Withdrawal of a simple (i.e. technical) subject from the usual context, transferring and integrating it into an alien environment (i.e. the gallery) allow a breakdown of the internal connection between form and content, as well as the local connection with the local context. This scenario allows the artist to connect with a variety of stories, suggests looking at the subject from a different perspective, bringing him back a clean form of energy – the one that was generated by the engineer who created it. At one of the stages of the pseudomorphs formation, only a phantom is left. An independent abstract form which is revealed only in unusual cases of the object existence. During the intervention of Pseudomorph III, original fragments of the Rüdersdorf lime plant were replaced by concrete fossils, while the original artifacts, forcibly removed, have been relocated to the display area in Berlin and become abstract sculptures.”

Artist Biography

Natalia Egorova (b. 1985, Petrozavodsk, Russia) is a media and graphic artist. The winner of the Art and Technology section of Garage Grant Programs for Emerging Artists in 2016 and 2017 (SDV Arts & Science Foundation, Grage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow). She was also shortlisted for this award in 2017 and 2018. In 2016 she was the winner of the High North A-i-R Network Program in Norway. Her work has been exhibited in Russia, Finland, Latvia, Germany, Norway, Greece and Spain.

Thank you for viewing INTERFERENCE, a digital exhibition by Natalia Egorova. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Please stay tuned for new exhibitions coming soon.