Artist Exhibition Explores the Concept of Longing
Fernweh: Into the Blue by Arist Andjana Pachkova
This exhibition is dedicated to my late mother, Anna Erikovna Pashkova (1953-2017), who above all loved the ocean.
While the show has been conceived over the last few years, some of the work has been produced during the global pandemic. With it, as we know, came subsequent restrictions on travel and freedom of movement, not just to far-away places, but to local places – something perhaps we all took for granted until it was taken away.
In autumn of this year we bought an old fixer-upper house in Byron Bay, finally committing to spending our time between Sydney and this beautiful northern New South Wales coastal environment – we have been visiting this special spot regularly since 2014. The whole family started surfing a few years back - we all love the ocean and the peaceful laid-back lifestyle of Byron. I also love that it is a small beach town with an international flavour and strong cultural influences and connections – music, literary, art, food.
I am a constantly curious person and this series of new works is about the acceptance of a never-ending longing for adventure and exploration. Being in the ocean and surfing, for me, is about encompassing a flow of energy and of tuning into the current, rather than forcing it. Unlike travel across other terrains, traveling with the waves, whether on a surfboard, bodysurfing or swimming, becomes a collaborative undertaking with the force of the ocean. Being in tune with nature and the ability to listen to what is happening within oneself - fear, resistance - and an acute awareness of the elements outside of oneself - currents, wind, choppy waves, approaching storms - has become a gentle reminder to me of the flow of universal energy. It is this playfulness and energy I take back with me to the studio, allowing for its expression in my work.
I love being generous with paint, using crayons, adding charcoal, pen and various media for more texture and line, mixing the mediums together – sometimes a happenstance of marks adds a new dimension. I love a colour palette both soft and rich.
As a visual artist I am captivated by everything I see in the world around me. I am also enthralled by the things we hear - music and exploration of sound really help the development of my visual language and expression of my themes. Nature and music are the two primary sources of inspiration in my work.
Over the last few years I have collaborated with Reza Naeemi, a Turkish-Iranian musician who wrote an album for my last show called 'Castle in the Sky’ (2018). He has now written a new album called ‘Fernweh’ (available from 07 August 2020) as a response to the work in my new show. You can find both albums on Spotify and other music platforms.
Whilst I have always been fascinated with the sea, my art has mostly centred around abstract references to the Australian landscape – an exploration of the interior one could say.
So, for me now with my art practice, it seems a most natural step forward to let my paint sing an ode to the sea.
Ukrainian-born, Russian-raised, American-educated Wall Street lawyer, Andjana Pachkova, lives in Sydney with her husband and family of three young boys. The artist has been considering the concept of fernweh – a deep feeling of longing - for some time now – and wanted to imbue this emotion into her latest collection, Fernweh: Into the Blue.
Andjana gains inspiration for her work from nature and the landscape, from music and more recently she has found further inspiration in her love of the ocean and newly found passion for surfing.
The Catalogue for this exhibition includes an essay from acclaimed Australian artist, Richard Goodwin.
He says of the artist (extract): … she exposes herself to the chaos and luminosity of the ocean as though it were her palette…AP is a streak of lightening, a shooting star.
The artist is represented by Stanley Street Gallery in Sydney and Mercury Gallery in Moscow.
Fernweh: Into the Blue continues Andjana Pachkova’s exploration of longing - in her second solo exhibition at Stanley Street Gallery, in Darlinghurst Sydney.
Fernweh is a German word, in some way akin to Die Sehnsucht (the title of the Artist’s previous solo show in 2018). It means far-sickness, or a longing for far-away unexplored places. It is, in a way, a nostalgia for what has never been, or more precisely, for where one has never been.
Fernweh has been used by the artist in the show’s title because, for her, it encompasses the basic notion that when we long for far-away places, we are longing for freedom of movement, freedom of imagination and for the freedom to explore.
Andjana Pachkova: The experience of ‘fernweh’ has been especially prescient due to the events that have unfolded internationally this year, 2020.
Andjana Pachkova