Artist Irina Tall shares her unique work and the power of creativity
This Modern Struggle Magazine had the honour of speaking with artist and writer Irina Tall and sharing her unique artwork.
She shares her artistic journey, her creative process, the powerful meanings behind her work and the way that art can inspire and influence.
Thank you so much to Irina for taking the time to share her creativity and insights with us.
What has been your journey as an artist and how did it start?
I started drawing from the age of three, and at the age of 14 I had my first personal exhibition. This was followed by 20 personal exhibitions, and then when I was studying at the institute I had a short break. I was constantly drawing, but I couldn’t participate in a large number of exhibitions and exhibited only in a small exhibition hall with local artists. When I graduated from college and received my diploma, I breathed freely and began to do what I liked...
The path of an artist is very difficult and consists of ups and downs.
"Out of storm and calm." There is a very famous work by Gaspar Davila Friedrich, where a young man stands on a ledge of a rock, and in front of him is a stormy sea. The man is depicted with his back to the viewer and we do not see his face, and the thin figure seems helpless in front of the raging ocean. This is exactly the image I would choose as a refrain when talking about the artist’s path.
2. What inspires you to create?
Very often, for inspiration, I go to the forest, listen to the birds, look at the fallen leaves. I am inspired by a beautiful sunrise, a strong wind that swirls leaves or carries bags behind the clouds... I often try to imagine a bag as a living creature that lives on a cloud, where it could grow tangerines or some other fruit.
And then a story is born about a bird who became a girl and lost her memory because she had to live among people. So I wrote a short story, “When You Stop Answering Questions.”
Most often I write at night or early in the morning, at three o’clock. Then the external noise of the street does not interfere and it seems that the world is full of stars, and the sun is just a ghost of the future, which will be better than the past...
3. What is your creative process?
I do a lot of monotypes, and then I look at the spots and imagine different creatures on a piece of paper, completing what I see. The second way is that I come up with an idea, and in the process I rework it, refine it, and so not one work is born, but a series that becomes history. I very often write short texts for my works, sometimes even poetry.
4. Your work is extremely unique in its use of mixed media collage and hand drawings - why did you choose this medium?
Sometimes you simply cannot find some elements and then the question arises: is it possible to quit work halfway? Or does the idea need to be reworked? Sometimes I remake what is already there... But still I want to finish it, bring it to what you have in your head and then I think: I can draw. Then I finish drawing some elements, for example wings, or feathers, or fish - sometimes it’s a whole object, for example, a dragonfly or a fly.
Sometimes I want to make a collage in the form of a rebus or puzzle, so that there are some hints of something known or generally accepted. And sometimes I just want to make some kind of aesthetics, which appears as an image in your head, that’s why I took threads, felt and fabric... I just make a collage from what I have at hand.
An image is most often born when I look at magazines or films, or think about something specific. For example, for a collage about war, initially I had the idea of creating it for about a week, and then I remembered that there is an image of mourning (Georgian art), classical iconography, and that this image itself is very powerful plastically. And then I thought: why not a white angel... and I made a whole series of white Angels on a scarlet burning background.
5. Your artwork has a distinctive style - often portraying a mixture of women and natural elements such as animals, especially birds…
The bird with a human face is the Greek Siren. A bird and a man at the same time... The siren lured sailors with her song, and their ships crashed against the rocks, and people died. My Siren also sings a song, but it is a song of her inner world; it is not a negative or positive song, it is rather a song about individuality. My bird is always a woman, this is more related to my self-portrait. Birds are able to fly for many kilometres, there are no borders for them, they do not need any papers that give them the right to stay in a certain place, birds are free. A person often tries to become a bird or to some extent be like a bird, hence the mask - a human face on a bird's body.
6. ...What does this represent?
I want people not to do evil, so that they become better and can do what they really want, so that there is no coercion or pressure on a person... I want people to be free! Sometimes I listen to what the viewer thinks about my work, and they have completely different thoughts than me, and based on the conversation, my other works are born.
There is a lot hidden in a person and I would be glad if one of the viewers or writers were inspired by my work and did something of their own.
7. What do you hope people take away from your work?
It is important for an artist to have recognition and do what they love.. and it is very difficult, but worth achieving!
The pandemic was a catalyst for the fact that a year later I made a monotype series, “Ghosts”. One of these works ended up in the museum collection, and I also painted several small works based on these motives, which took part in many exhibitions and are now in private and museum collections.
It was 2021, when my “Ghosts” series took part in various exhibitions, that many of the works were then published in magazines.
For example, the Japanese magazine "365+" published about ten of my works, and I also did work based on the magazine "Gupsophila".
8. What was your first big moment where you felt like you had made it as an artist and your work was connecting with people?
Probably the fact that I felt that I could make any thing or object. I now began to make scarves, painting the fabric and sewing glass beads and pieces of fabric.
My most successful work is “Dream” from the “Ghosts” series.
I greatly altered her composition, enlarging the head in the foreground and reducing the figure of Sirin in the distance, but I would like to put it almost on the same line. I was inspired by one of the ancient legends, the battle of the gods and the children of the goddess Gaia. I wondered why not look for something decaying and beautiful, and that’s how the idea of Sirin’s big head came about.
9. What is your biggest achievement as an artist?
This is a difficult question! Probably participation in art week in Poznan. And the series of works "Ghosts". That’s when I started doing monotypes with ink for the first time.
Ghosts are human souls or rather a trace left by someone in our mind.
10. What next gallery show or exhibition do you have coming up in 2024?
Soon I should have an exhibition opening in Berlin, where I am participating. It has an almost symbolic name: "Salon of the Rejected".
I had a lot of refusals in 2023, but overall the year was successful.
By the way, I also write poetry and short stories, and three of my poems were published in early January by Southern Arizona Press.
One of my poems, I Forget Myself:
I forget myself in the melancholy of times,
where the arrows are like scissors
cut off pieces of you...
and you become thinner
as if it were a ring of omnipotence...
Melted chocolate remains on your fingers
Reminding us with membranes that
We were all once fish...
Interview with Irina Tall
Artist and Writer
Irina Tall (Novikova) is an artist, graphic artist, illustrator. She graduated from the State Academy of Slavic Cultures with a degree in art, and also has a bachelor's degree in design.
Her first personal exhibition "My soul is like a wild hawk" (2002) was held in the museum of Maxim Bagdanovich. In her works, she raises themes of ecology, and in 2005 she devoted a series of works to the Chernobyl disaster, drawing on anti-war topics. The first big series she drew was The Red Book, dedicated to rare and endangered species of animals and birds. She also writes fairy tales and poems and illustrates short stories. She draws various fantastic creatures: unicorns, animals with human faces, she especially likes the image of a man - a bird - Siren.
In 2020, she took part in Poznań Art Week. Her work has been published in magazines: Gupsophila, Harpy Hybrid Review, Little Literary Living Room and others. In 2022, her short story was included in the collection "The 50 Best Short Stories", and her poem was published in the collection of poetry "The wonders of winter".