SONIA MELNIKOVA ART PHOTOGRAPHY

Artist's Statement:

I was born and trained as an architect and artist in Moscow, first at the Moscow State Art School at the Academy of Art of the USSR and then at the Moscow State Architectural Institute, and have been living in San Francisco since 1987. Later in life I discovered photography, however my training as an architect and painter remains present in my work. I often hear from viewers that many of my photographs have a strong resemblance to drawn or painted media. Partly it may be because as an architect I am concerned with the apparent contradiction between a photograph as a “window” into a three-dimensional world while it also has its own material presence; between the flatness of the photograph and the lifelike illusion of depth of the image. Therefore, as an artist, I am less interested in reflecting the three-dimensionality of the photographed objects but rather like to explore the abstract in the material world and spatial ambiguities caused by reflective surfaces, resulting in painterly and slightly surreal images. I prefer subtle and muted colors and print on matte textured archival papers to help further break a picture's “sharpness.” Taking advantage of particular daylight conditions and certain photographic and editing techniques, I try to emphasize geometry and texture of the plane and deemphasize three-dimensionality of the form to bring the viewer's attention to the physical surface of the photograph, its pictorial aspects and composition. As to my objects, I look for grace, poetry and mystique in the most common of things around. In that respect I feel strong affinity with the Japanese philosophy and aesthetics of wabi-sabi, with its focus on the transient nature of things and reverence of the beauty and dignity in old things, with all imperfections that occur with age.

What Critics Say:

“Sonia Melnikova appreciates the city's foggy summers. Her special brand of photography does not call for sunshine and intricate shadows, nor is it interested in reflecting the three-dimensionality of objects in photoprint. Melnikova's eye is trained on capturing barely visible or disappearing things—subtle reminders of time passing by on deserted beaches and in ghost towns—the remnants of our everyday, gradually descending into oblivion. The artist is referring to the Japanese wabi-sabi philosophy as her inspiration in seeking the transitional, the declining, the beautifully imperfect—her ultimate subject matter. She finds these momentary revelations ... with her relentlessly precise artistic vision. Melnikova sees art in rusty parts of formerly functional mechanical systems, and in flotsam and jetsam along California coastline, and in her matted archival paper prints every speck of rust and every grain of sand comes to live, captures between here and eternity, between one tidal wave and the next.” — Emma Krasin, art critic

“Sonia Melnikova's art seems to float on some poetic altitude of dissolution and phantom images of the past.” “... she stretched the laces of her architectural motives seemingly in a Gothic manner. Their verticality and ‘brain spinning’ distortion of height provoke two-pronged feelings: an atmosphere of prayer and vertigo at the same time. The series is quite powerful and inventive.” “Sonia's ‘abstract thoughts’ are quite remarkable in terms of their technique. The overall color field and liquidity of the series induces some thoughts on the Viennese school, perhaps Klimt, but without girls.” — Valery and Rimma Gerlovin, conceptual photography artists, New York

About the Artworks:

All works are signed individually produced original high-resolution photographs printed using state-of-the-art technology with non-fading inks on archival-quality Somerset Velvet Fine Art textured paper. The artist avoids mass-producing her work by printing on-demand a limited number of pieces while maintaining full control of the quality of each individual print.