Marja Davidoff is an artist based in Austria. She studied sculpture, painting and art history by Rodekin in Milan and Luigi Ontani in Rome. Her first solo exhibition, Zinc White Earth, will takes place in May in the Landeskulturzentrum Ursulinenhof, in Linz, Austria. The perfect occasion for us to learn a bit more about Marja and her fascinating art.
KALTBLUT: Hi Marja. Could you please tell us a bit yourself, where are you from and what you do.
Marja: After NYC and then Moscow, I now live in a secluded house in-between pink poppy-fields, in Austria. I go to the mountains, collect art and paint paintings.
KALTBLUT: I am obsessed with your painting. When did you start with the painting, what push you to do so?
Marja: Thank you! I started painting when I was fifteen- and since then I do nothing else. An encounter changed my life in a day- I met an artist, Rodekin, who teaches me to draw/paint and to delight in art.
KALTBLUT: This silhouette, this woman you paint, is it you?
Marja: I was uniting the features of hundreds of faces/bodies, which I find beautiful- so these paintings depict my idea of beauty, not a particular person.
KALTBLUT: You also do photography. How your painting is related to your photography ?
Marja: My intention was to transfer the contemporary nerve of photography into the timeless silence of painting. Photography is free from responsibility that a painting has, it is instant, bold and open to every subject of life around, it has its own liberty. And doubtlessly it is the language of today, a media far more appropriate today then painting is. But photography lacks depth- you can never contemplate it in the way as you can a painting. So it was interesting to me to try to unite them in some way. A photography inspired the first of these paintings- it encouraged me- without it, I wouldn’t paint such an image.
KALTBLUT: Your first solo exhibition “Zinc White Earth” is going to takes place in May in Linz, Austria. Can you give a little sneak peak about what we gonna find there?
Marja: It took me almost five years to fulfil the idea of this exhibition, which is an imaginary room of allegories, of visions of beauty; a circle of life-sized oil paintings, united through one sensation. I wanted to turn the female figure into the symbol- so I removed the background totally, leaving her and her feeling alone in the emptiness.
KALTBLUT: You said that this show will be dedicated to the vision of new beauty. What is your personal vision of Beauty? What does new beauty means for you?
Marja: Beauty is like a diamond- if you are true with yourself, you can add it a new facet. Not imitating the trends, not doing as “everybody” does, not thinking to please anyone- but yourself- then you have a chance to find that new perception of beauty- to see the world, it’s beauty the way no one did before- to see it new. I am attracted to cold colours, blue shadowed porcelain white skin, azure veins, crystal lake eyes, long thin bodies- incorporeal distant beings.
KALTBLUT: What is your opinion on the fact that social media has redefine the meaning of the word beauty by all this “perfect body” publication?
Marja: “perfect body” is not enough- there are millions of “perfect bodies”, which are as boring as barbies. Beauty is something, that you can’t understand or define- same as love.
KALTBLUT: How social media influence your work ?
Marja: I can’t say that it influences my work, but I am attentive to it- as it is a reflection of the world.
KALTBLUT: What is your ultimate goal?
Marja: What is the ultimate goal of a rose? To grow high, to blossom with sumptuous flowers, to attract one’s mind or to prick the fingers, to beautify the garden or to decay in earth? I am not sure, if one can be so concrete- let us enjoy the adventure.
What? Where? When?
Zinc White Earth by Marja Davidoff
Landeskulturzentrum Ursulinenhof, Linz, Austria
From 6 May till 1 April 2017
Contact:
Instagram: @marjadavidoff
