Interview Part 3 - Lena Semenkova Feature

January 24, 2008

The Works! Surreal Quality! Faces of Time in Global Crisis

Lena has a vast and constantly growing collection of material. If you were looking for an artist bent on creating a career in the visual arts out of a large body of work, you would not need to look much farther than Lena’s gallery at Deviant Art, and eventually, her own website.

Faces of Time

Against a cloudy blue sky that fades into haze on the background of the horizon, and distant gently sloping hills, two towers penetrate the air, dimly lit and wreathed in cloud. In front of them laps an ocean filled with alabaster faces rising to the surface, upon which sits a woman in an off the shoulder deep-blue leotard. She sits lotus fashion, at ease on the surface of the water, suspended by unknown, unseen forces, perhaps by an act of will.

Her shoulders are tattooed with tentacles that appear to wrap her body beneath the garments, crawling along her arms as if to ensure total possession. Her legs are wrapped in tattered nylon silks, patches and tears exposing skin to the elements. She has no shoes, and her socks are horizontal stripes of blue-and-white wrapping a dancers limbs, below the puffy taffeta of her pale blue tutu.

Her right arm is extended towards us and held out in front of her face, backdropped by a flaming mass of sienna-red hair that is tossed upward by a wind that we cannot see reflected in the surface of the waters around her; it is frozen in a moment, as if captured like the mask she holds directly in front of her face. so we cannot see her. The mask is a white oval of the Venetian variety, a bright white surface contoured by shadow and given definition by the blue make up that surrounds the eyes in whorls and curlicues that capture attention before parallel drips of blue run down the face like sad tears forever captured in a moment of loss.

Faces Of Time by Lena

12 October 2007

TFA: Tell me about “Faces of Time” - when did you first create it?

Lena: Oh, it was the beginning of a friendship with a photographer. I saw the original picture and we agreed that I could use it. He didn’t mind much since I loved the picture and he wasn’t that enthusiastic about it.

The original picture featured the model on a black background, very limited colors. So we both were surprised of how light, colorful and optimistic it turned out in the end.

TFA: Yes, it does have a surreal quality that sets it apart from the others. So when you saw the original photo (do you have permission for us to use it?) it inspired the image we now know as “Faces of Time” or…? Did that concept perhaps emerge later?

Lena: I have all the permissions for print, from both photographer and a model; we cleared all the issues we had.

I named it after a line Roland Dischain, the character of my all-time favorite book series “Dark Tower” by Stephen King, loved to repeat. Roland would say, “Time is only a face on the water.” The concept kinda built itself in the process. I planned something with blood and skulls, in sepia tones. Some kind of a mad priestess on the stairs of a pagan shrine maybe.

I think she shows the moment of time in our lives. Picks the moment and shows the reflection of the corresponding person; whoever she is.

TFA: It’s like the face behind the mask could be yours. What was the most challenging aspect you encountered when putting Faces in Time together and how did you resolve it in the end?

Lena: I have a sort of torn-stockings-fetish. They represent a certain degree of carelessness and thus, freedom to me. And they’re very hard to find via resources. So I half-photographed, half-drew them.

TFA: So, a creative solution and voila!

Lena: Oh yeah! Stockings all the way!

TFA: Was it the gauzy part or matching them to socks or the transparency or the holes that made it so challenging?

Lena: Transparency of those holes is 100% handmade, man. It nearly killed me. And sharpness, too; the picture was impossibly blurry.

TFA: You’ve said that this is one of your most popular works, why do you think that is?

Lena: I suspect that she has those huge eyes behind the mask. It looks suspiciously like an anime piece to me.

TFA: [Laughter] I bet she does too.

Lena: And everything anime-related sells good like hell.

TFA: There is a certain anime-quality, if I can call it that, to your work.

Lena: Don’t ask me, I surely have no ideas of why does it happen. [Laughter]

TFA: Though it is far more realistic. The hair for example often seems to me to have that anime look.

Lena: Yes, probably. The hair is weird, for sure. I love weird hair.

Global Crisis - the Issue of Our Times

TFA: Your image Global Crisis is quite startling. The symbology is particularly interesting…mature Siamese women…garbed in black-and-white…a cross…barbed wire…petals…one blinded (with a blindfold) woman and they are torn in two directions as if their personalities are conflicted by the crisis. Tell me about this particular piece. Is there a particular global crisis this image is referring to?

Global Crisis by Lena

Lena: I watched a CSI Las Vegas episode entitled Pirates of the Third Reich. About a Nazi maniac who kidnapped people and used them in his sadistic experiments. He basically sewed two men together making Siamese twins artificially. The image was very disturbing. I thought I’d do something violent involving Siamese twins. Something bloody.

Some people told me they saw the symbol of Russian empire, a two-headed eagle in it. But Russian empire was the last thing I thought about while doing the piece.

Global Crisis is about kindness and love being blind (and nowhere in sight sometimes), while evil sees everything and never sleeps.

TFA: And is there a particular global crisis you wanted to draw attention to…or…?

Lena: No. Nothing specific. Our world is in crisis in any direction you dig.

TFA: As an artist how do you feel about that and is this the tension affecting your work?

Lena: I feel the tension, like many people do, and I feel pretty much helpless.

TFA: In Global Crisis, what is the woman in white holding in her uplifted hand, it doesn’t look like a cell phone?

Lena: [Laughter], it’s a butterfly; purity itself.

TFA: Butterflies are purity?

Lena: As long as they are not moths, they are.

TFA: [Laughter] I take it you and moths do not get along…but seriously, the butterfly is there to represent purity?

Lena: Yes. And another reason is to prevent that woman in white from slapping that bitch in black.

You can’t top a line like that.

Global Crisis and Faces of Time are high quality collectible prints that keep Lena in shoes and pants. Buy them direct from Lena’s Gallery.

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Written by NDK Creative Artist · Filed Under Creative Artists, Features

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