All the bustle of the earth slid past

Olga Akasi
"All fuss of the Earth was gliding past ...
Painting, drawing
On May, 31 - June, 21 2005

The personal exhibition of the Kiev classical artist Olga Akashi (Kiev) is a non-conceptual collection of paintings created in 2004-2005, and united under the title "All the vanity of the earth slid past ...". A rich literary tradition in addressing the legacy of Petrarch and the image of Laura de Nov (1301 - 1348), which played a significant role in the poet's work, is rarely or almost completely unaffected in painting, except for illustrative material. Like the painting “Young Hamlet” by Akashi, “Portrait of Laura de Nov” can be considered innovative in the “visual poetry” of the author. This work served as a reference point for the opening exhibition in the Griffin Gallery.

Olga Akashi is an artist of a new generation with her original style and theme, uniting all of her works, but without following the techniques of contemporary art, specializing in criticizing public taste or standards of perception. The author develops his own aesthetic view of the world through the prism of poetry. The secret of Olga Akashi’s paintings is intimacy, not exclusion; disclosing to the viewer not actual, but empathic knowledge about a person. The creative range of the author is wide and touches on the best in painting from the Renaissance to the present. The gold thread that runs through the whole work of Olga Akashi, in addition to the style and technique of writing, is the emphasis on images that can be used for living ...

The Gryphon Gallery, Kiev, 01001, 6 Kostelnya Street

Instead of embracing current trends in art, Akasi chose a more rigorous path. She started studying Titian, Rembrandt, and Velasquez – artist who invested portraiture with a peculiarly expressive and revealing power. Then she spent a lot of time journeying around the mystically energetic sites in western Sayans, Pamir, Crimea, southern Siberia, Altay and the Carpathians. So maybe it is no surprise the dignity of the individual soul and the spiritual energy that radiates out from it seem to be main themes of her meditative work.
Victoria Barchenko. Kyiv Post. Vol. 12, Issue 32