Elena GILEVA
Cultural Landscape
9 September – 2 November 2017
Elena Gileva, Woven Pebbles, 2016, faïence et grès, h. 19 à 35 cm. Photo Sylvain Deleu
The Galerie de l’Ancienne Poste, dedicated to contemporary ceramic art, includes in its programme both senior artists and young emerging artists committed to the medium of clay. As part of its 20th anniversary schedule of events, the gallery is inviting young London artist Elena Gileva.
Born in Russia in 1992, Elena Gileva began her artistic career in Saint Petersburg. After two years of studying classical sculpture, Gileva moved to Paris in 2009, where she got a BFA at the Parsons Paris School of Art and Design as a student of ceramic artist Kristin McKirdy.
Her 2015 residency in Japan, at the Shigaraki Ceramic Sculpture Park, proved a turning point in her learning as she decided to focus fully on ceramics from that point on. In 2016, she completed a Ceramics and Glass MA at the London Royal College of Art, where she presented a noteworthy installation of her “Woven Pebbles”. Gileva is now pursuing her work as a ceramic sculptor who renews the traditional practices of the material: a coil of clay is no longer the basis for the construction of a container with her, but the displayed expression of an elaborate construction.
This exhibition at the Galerie de l’Ancienne Poste is the first display of her work in France. It gathers 27 pieces crafted between 2015 and 2017 and presented in the catalogue published for the occasion.
“Fascination with history and culture contained in objects is expressed throughout my work. Observing and studying formal aspects of artifacts as well as finding their meanings and histories drives me to create their contemporary renderings. I am interested in the material culture, in its expression and interpretation. Decoration and surface are my main basis for the transmission of a concept. Abandoning current trends of minimal, modern/postmodern and purely conceptual I take ORNAMENTAL as a subject and symbol of the old and new; the spiral movement of history. The object as a power tool is crucial to communicate ideas. The narratives created through the agency of relics are a base of our collective consciousness, however in the contemporary world the axis of histories has been shifted through the displacement of historical objects. Acting as a ‘collector’ of surfaces, ideas and shapes I seek to assemble an alternative universe.”
