Artist Feature: Alisa Gorshenina
Alisa Gorshenina (alice hualice) was born in Yakshina village in the Urals, Russia. She graduated from the art faculty of the Nizhniy Tagil Social and Pedagogical Institute. She works with a variety of mediums, such as: painting, graphics, textile sculptures, video art, animation and digital collages. Alisa was a member of the Tagil art group SECONDHAND from 2013 to 2016. In 2018 Alisa was the winner of the programme ‘Vslet at VDNH’ and she opened her personal exhibition ‘Uralskaya Shkura’ in the Hydrometeorology pavilion of VDNH. In the same year Alisa participated in Sondre Green – the Norwegian residence for textile artists. In 2019 she was included in the long list of the Kandinsky Prize and received a grant for artists from the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. The artist is a constant participant of the projects of the Ural branch of the NCCA: ‘Everything Is Not What It Seems’ within the ‘Bazhov-Fest’, ‘Non-Random Connections’, ‘Locals. From the Opportunity to Do Something Here to the Opportunity to Discover Something in Yourself’, ‘Taming the Emptiness. 50 Years of Contemporary Art of the Urals’, the 3rd and 4th Ural Industrial Biennials. Alisa is a participant of the Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art (2017 and 2020). In 2019 Alisa curated the exhibition ‘This Is Also Me’ – a project of the inclusive art laboratory #Zarisovki at the Yeltsin Center (Ekaterinburg), as well as work experience in the theater, as a costume and image artist, is the production of "The Adventures of Peter the Shoemaker" by the Provincial Dances Theater. (Ekaterinburg). In 2020 she participated in the exhibition ‘The Russian Fairy Tale. From Vasnetsov to the Present’ in the New Tretyakov Gallery, at the same time she opened a solo exhibition ‘samoiskusstvlenie’ in the Museum ART4 (Moscow). In 2021, she entered the long list of the Kandinsky Prize and the Sergey Kuryokhin Prize, opened two large solo projects: IGO - a family exhibition at the New Sincerity Gallery in Moscow, where the artist simultaneously acted as curator and participant of the exhibition, and the Huarealism project at the Nizhny Tagil Museum of Fine Arts, which became the first retrospective of the artist. In addition, she took part in the First Komi Biennale in Syktyvkar, as well as the northern residence in Arkhangelsk, at the ARKA Center for Contemporary Art. Alisa’s exhibition geography includes more than a dozen cities including Kiev, Krasnodar, Moscow, Perm, Saratov, Ekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Los Angeles. NBC, The Blueprint, Garage, AnOther Magazine, Harper's Bazaar Russia, The Village, Wonderzine and many other media wrote about Alisa.
I was born in a small Russian village, and it so happened that art from early childhood became an integral part of my life, the attitude to which is still being transformed. Initially, in the atmosphere of the wild wilderness and the absence of all that urban children have, art was something of an entertainment. When I was a little girl, I used to fantasize about nonexistent worlds, invent different adventures for myself, and all this with the help of art. Although then it was called not art, but scenery, so that augmented reality would look more convincing. Later, in the difficult teenage period, art compensated me for the complete lack of involvement in the life of my generation and the lack of friends and girlfriends. Here, the scenery was replaced by heavy, mostly black-and-white graphics, which depicted hypertrophied people, unreal creatures from another reality and self-portraits filled with personal fears. In the future, after going through art school, and then the institute and getting enough of all this artistic atmosphere, I was not enough of any one direction. So the illustrations were embodied in textile sculptures, which in turn became part of animation and photo collages. I still profess such a buoyancy of works from genre to genre and from technique to technique. I like it when one job can change its state while still being itself. And if in my childhood art was for me a cure for boredom or a salvation from loneliness, now it is a way of life. For all these years, I seem to have grown together with my work, we have become a single organism. I fill all my space with them, creating my reality, as I once did in my childhood, but a little more consciously. Recently, I have my own personal term – self-art, it is about the indissoluble connection between me and what I create. At some point, it became important to me that the works were either on me or in close physical connection with me. That is, my body and I myself become a part of all this to the maximum. I generally like to come up with some personal terms of my own, such as "samoiskusstvlenie"(self-art), for example, "Ural coma" - a fairly long state in which I created a lot of works, it is about a person in a place and a place within a person, or a broader "Russian foreign", about global feelings of oneself in the context of an entire country. There are also more abstract concepts, such as "huarealism", at the moment — this is a general designation of the "artistic universe" that I have created around me. In general, when describing my art, I can say that it definitely does not raise any global problems, but speaks about an ordinary little person and his life, in a peculiar manner. This is how I communicate with the world, in the language of art, which, unlike all existing languages, is accessible to everyone.
Art by @alicehualice
Q: Can you share something you've learned from creating this body of work that would resonate with our community?
AG: The world and society are constantly trying to violate my boundaries and take something away, I have learned to keep, cherish and respect what I create. Very often people want to take possession of my works, take them away from me and use them for their own purposes, despite the fact that I have repeatedly publicly said that the connection between me and my works is incredibly important to me, and that, for example, wearable objects that I especially appreciate work only in tandem with me, and turn into soulless accessories on other people. I'm talking now about the endless offers I get from people who want to use my masks and costumes in their shoots, videos or performances, while no one wants to give me anything in return. It can be very difficult for principled people in the art world, I very often refuse offers that could reveal my name to a large public, because the terms of cooperation violate the philosophy of my art. Over time, I realized that I was doing everything right, even if my path would be difficult and I could remain an unknown Russian artist, still my personal comfort and the correct representation of my works are in the first place for me. I do not know if this topic will find a response in your community, but it was very important for me to raise this topic. My works can rightfully be associated only with me, because I created them, and I would like people to respect this approach. I don't want to decorate other people's works, I don't want to visualize other people's ideas, I want to work only with my body and spirit.
Q: Tell us about your work process! Do you plan your images ahead or are you more improvisational?
AG: My workflow is diverse. Previously, as soon as ideas appeared in my head, I immediately had time to bring them to life. Then one day lived equaled one new object. Now I am increasingly planning any work due to lack of time. It is important for me to visualize the idea as soon as possible, so now I have started sketching thoughts and ideas, or creating miniatures. I also practice "post-sketches", that is, I make sketches of my already created works, at such moments I seem to penetrate deeper into what I am creating, I do an additional analysis of the work.
Often I collect my works from different elements, I always have a lot of images in my head, so I draw individual details and then combine it all into a single composition, first of all it concerns video works.
When I work with textiles, the bodily contact with objects is important for me here. It often happens that after creating a textile sculpture, I begin to interact with it, try it on to my body, as a result, based on these interactions, photos or videos of work are born. Constant interaction with the works, as well as their buoyancy through different mediums, is part of my practice.
Art by @alicehualice
Q: What types of expectations for artists are most challenging to you today?
AG: To be young and successful, now it seems to me that these requirements are in the top not only for artists. I don't seem to have managed to get into the category of young and successful, I often encounter ageism, unfortunately, although I am only 27 years old, and even if I were older, this should not affect the perception of work in any way. It's also very difficult for me to be an actual artist, to be on the wave of universal events. I don't always have enough emotional resources to publicly respond to various problems that occur in the world or in my country. Sometimes people write aggressive messages demanding a reaction from me. I think it's wrong. In addition, many people see the development of art only in digital form, and indeed digital art is flourishing now, but not all artists are close to it, so I would really like people to understand that not everyone is ready to go into the digital world. There are also problems within the system of contemporary art. Many curators in my country and abroad want to see the artist as something very comfortable and accommodating. I noticed that many curators or art institutions do not know how to take criticism in their address, they believe that only they have the authority to criticize and give advice. Artists seem to be not such an important element, although it is they who create art, without which there was no system of modern art with all its museums, galleries, curators, art critics, art dealers, etc. Artists are often presented as people "out of this world", so airy, fickle, unable to express their opinions and stand up for themselves, but this is not so, we are all very different, because we are all people. I am often called a conflicted artist, just because I constantly defend my rights in the field of art.
Q: What is your advice to young and aspiring photographers?
AG: Despite the fact that photography is a big part of my artistic practice, I position myself as an artist, not a photographer, so my advice will probably be general, in general, for artists. First of all, I would advise you to cultivate an artist within yourself, to create works that are primarily based on the topic that you know, do not chase current topics, work honestly and sincerely. If you are inspired by other artists, then process this inspiration as much as possible and create something of your own.
Art by @alicehualice
Q: Do you have any upcoming events, exhibitions, or news you'd like to share?
AG: This year I hope to make a small animated film called "The Stone of Dreams". I plan to shoot in my native village, where I was born once. This is a fantastic story based on real events. "Stone of dreams" One day I was walking along a village road strewn with gray rubble and suddenly I saw a blue stone, it looked like a fallen piece of the night sky. I took it for myself and gave it a special power. I believed that if I put it under my pillow, it would certainly protect my sleep. And so it was. When I left for the city, I forgot my stone and since then I have lost my peace. The dreams became too deep, I was losing my sense of reality. Later, I returned to the village, but by that time the stone had disappeared. It took me many years to find him and regain my protection. As for events and exhibitions, I have several group shows planned in Russia, and possibly several in Europe. The situation in the world is still very unstable, so I don't really trust my plans, but just work).
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